Catherine Reef

By sheer coincidence, I read The Bronte Sisters immediately after Dorothy Sayers's Are Women Human? and found many threads of connection between Sayers's and Charlotte Bronte's insistence that women (and their work) should, indeed must, be considered as human first and foremost. Charlotte and her sisters struggled much more than Sayers did against the attitudes that would confine women to a narrow scope of endeavour defined by men, but the attitudes are still recognizable even now. Sayers, show more writing around 1940, is approximately halfway between the Brontes and the present, so it's interesting to see social attitudes sampled at 80-year intervals ... interesting to see what has changed, and appalling to see how much has stayed the same.

Also, this biography was well-written, enjoyable to read, well-illustrated, and informative. I feel that I know the Brontes much better and after a thorough introduction to their entire work, I'd like to read some of the books I have yet to encounter. show less

I found this book informative and engaging. It describes, as you might expect, the lives of the Bronte siblings (including two older sisters who died young, and a brother who lived to adulthood but died within a year of Emily and Anne). The author draws parallels from the lives of the sisters to memorable scenes and characters from their books. It's clear that Reef has done a great deal of careful research, and that her subjects live in her imagination and therefore in the pages of the book.

Admirers of Hemingway are often said to have bought too much into his persona, that his adventure filled lifestyle has been exaggerated to such an extent it no longer reflect reality. I was expecting to feel the same way after reading Ernest Hemingway: A Writer's Life, but I came away with even more stories, with being more in awe of what many consider the greatest writer America has ever produced. It truly was a writer's life and Hemingway chased adventure and danger the way most chase a show more mortgage and a steady career. Whether it was crash lading in hills of Africa--- and freeing himself from a burning plane by ramming his his through its windshield--- or chasing Nazi subs off Cuba, glass of whiskey in one hand grenade in the other, Hemingway lived it all on his own terms. Sure, he grew crass, difficult to be around, and eventually reclusive, but, as a famous crooner of the time might have noted, he did it his way.
Author Catherine Reef makes no excuses for Hemingway and shows him for what he was, warts and all. The result is an immaculately revealing book--- purposefully researched, full of the small details--- that perhaps the man himself once imagined for himself. Like her subject, Reef pulls no punches. She also uses his journalistic style: short, detailed, accurate, and above all, incredibly interesting. show less

For some students, the first-time appearance of a Brontë novel on a syllabus is cause for a disgruntled groan. More often than not, however, the devilish Heathcliff or strong-willed Jane surprises readers and wins over another generation of Brontë admirers.

But what about the women behind the fascinating novels? The sisters’ childhood was spent on the beautiful moors of Yorkshire, along with their brother, Branwell, and their father, a reverend. Unfortunately, their childhood was marred show more by sadness; their mother died when they were children, and two older sisters followed not long after. Because of that, the sisters and Branwell became insular and made up fantastical tales of lands of their own invention. The creativity never left the sisters, and despite taking jobs later in life they loathed, they each produced a masterpiece, written under male pseudonyms, that caused quite the stir when their books were published in the 1840s.

Although the book covers the lives of each of the three sisters, the story never feels rushed, and a great deal of time is given to each sister, who were quite different in personalities. Even for those that haven’t read a Brontë work, the book interweaves just enough synopses of their works for that purpose, but not too much to bore those that have read them. The lives of these three young women were certainly brief, but as Reef’s book illustrates, what they did in that short time was nothing short of magnificent. Highly recommended. Grades 7 and up. show less