What are you reading the week of September 5, 2015?
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1fredbacon
Jean Rhys, (24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979), born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams, was a mid-20th-century novelist from the Caribbean island of Dominica. Educated from the age of 16 in Great Britain, she is best known for her novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
Rhys was born in Roseau, Dominica, an island of the British West Indies. Her father, William Rees Williams, was a Welsh doctor and her mother, Minna Williams, was a third-generation Dominican Creole of Scots ancestry. Creole was broadly used in those times to refer to people born on the island, whether they were of white or mixed blood.
Rhys was educated in Dominica until the age of 16, when she was sent to England to live with her aunt. She attended the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge, where she was mocked as an outsider and for her accent. She attended two terms at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London by 1909. Her instructors despaired of her ever learning to speak "proper English" and advised her father to take her away. Now unable to train as an actress and refusing to return to the Caribbean as her parents wished, she worked with varied success as a chorus girl, adopting the names Vivienne, Emma or Ella Gray.
After her father died in 1910, Rhys appeared to have experimented with the prospect of living as a demimondaine; she became the mistress of a wealthy stockbroker, Lancelot Grey Hugh ("Lancey") Smith. Though a bachelor, Smith did not offer to marry Rhys and their affair soon ended; he continued to be an occasional source of financial help. Distraught by events, including a near-fatal abortion (not Smith's child), Rhys began writing and produced her novel Voyage In The Dark. In 1913 she worked for a time as a nude model in Britain.
In 1924 Rhys came under the influence of the English writer Ford Madox Ford. After they met in Paris, Rhys wrote short stories under his patronage. Ford recognized that her experience as an exile gave Rhys a unique viewpoint, and he praised her "singular instinct for form". "Coming from the West Indies, he declared, 'with a terrifying insight and ... passion for stating the case of the underdog, she has let her pen loose on the Left Banks of the Old World'." It was Ford who suggested she change her name to Jean Rhys (from Ella Williams).
(At the time her husband was in jail for what Rhys described as currency irregularities.) Rhys moved in with Ford and his longtime partner, Stella Bowen. An affair with Ford ensued, which, in fictionalized form, she portrayed in her novel Quartet.
With Voyage in the Dark (1934), Rhys continued to portray the mistreated, rootless woman. In this novel her protagonist was a young chorus girl who grew up in the West Indies and was living in England, feeling alienated. In Good Morning, Midnight published in 1939, Rhys used modified stream of consciousness to voice the experiences of an aging woman.
In the 1940s Rhys all but disappeared from public view; from 1955 to 1960 she lived in Bude in Cornwall, where she was unhappy—calling it "Bude the Obscure"—before moving to Cheriton Fitzpaine in Devon. After a long absence from the public eye, she published Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966, having spent years drafting and perfecting it. She intended it as the account of the woman whom Rochester would marry and keep in his attic in Jane Eyre. Begun well before she settled in Bude, the book won the prestigious WH Smith Literary Award in 1967.
In Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys returned to themes of dominance and dependence, especially in marriage; here she depicted the mutually painful relationship between a privileged English man and a Creole woman of Dominica made powerless on being duped and coerced by him and others. Both the man and woman enter into marriage under mistaken assumptions about the other. Her female lead marries Mr. Rochester, and deteriorates in England as the "madwoman in the attic." Rhys portrays this woman from quite a different perspective than that drawn in Jane Eyre. Diana Athill of the André Deutsch house gambled on publishing Wide Sargasso Sea; she and the writer Francis Wyndham helped revive widespread interest in Rhys' work.
From 1960, for the rest of her life, Rhys lived in Cheriton Fitzpaine, a small Devon village she once described as "a dull spot which even drink can't enliven much". Characteristically, she remained unimpressed by her belated ascent to literary fame, commenting, "It has come too late." In an interview shortly before her death, Rhys questioned whether any novelist, not least herself, could ever be happy for any length of time. She said: "If I could choose I would rather be happy than write ... if I could live my life all over again, and choose ...". She died in Exeter on 14 May 1979, at the age of 88, before completing her autobiography, which she had begun dictating only months earlier. In 1979, the incomplete text was published posthumously under the title, Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography.
Selected Bibliography
Rhys was born in Roseau, Dominica, an island of the British West Indies. Her father, William Rees Williams, was a Welsh doctor and her mother, Minna Williams, was a third-generation Dominican Creole of Scots ancestry. Creole was broadly used in those times to refer to people born on the island, whether they were of white or mixed blood.
Rhys was educated in Dominica until the age of 16, when she was sent to England to live with her aunt. She attended the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge, where she was mocked as an outsider and for her accent. She attended two terms at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London by 1909. Her instructors despaired of her ever learning to speak "proper English" and advised her father to take her away. Now unable to train as an actress and refusing to return to the Caribbean as her parents wished, she worked with varied success as a chorus girl, adopting the names Vivienne, Emma or Ella Gray.
After her father died in 1910, Rhys appeared to have experimented with the prospect of living as a demimondaine; she became the mistress of a wealthy stockbroker, Lancelot Grey Hugh ("Lancey") Smith. Though a bachelor, Smith did not offer to marry Rhys and their affair soon ended; he continued to be an occasional source of financial help. Distraught by events, including a near-fatal abortion (not Smith's child), Rhys began writing and produced her novel Voyage In The Dark. In 1913 she worked for a time as a nude model in Britain.
In 1924 Rhys came under the influence of the English writer Ford Madox Ford. After they met in Paris, Rhys wrote short stories under his patronage. Ford recognized that her experience as an exile gave Rhys a unique viewpoint, and he praised her "singular instinct for form". "Coming from the West Indies, he declared, 'with a terrifying insight and ... passion for stating the case of the underdog, she has let her pen loose on the Left Banks of the Old World'." It was Ford who suggested she change her name to Jean Rhys (from Ella Williams).
(At the time her husband was in jail for what Rhys described as currency irregularities.) Rhys moved in with Ford and his longtime partner, Stella Bowen. An affair with Ford ensued, which, in fictionalized form, she portrayed in her novel Quartet.
With Voyage in the Dark (1934), Rhys continued to portray the mistreated, rootless woman. In this novel her protagonist was a young chorus girl who grew up in the West Indies and was living in England, feeling alienated. In Good Morning, Midnight published in 1939, Rhys used modified stream of consciousness to voice the experiences of an aging woman.
In the 1940s Rhys all but disappeared from public view; from 1955 to 1960 she lived in Bude in Cornwall, where she was unhappy—calling it "Bude the Obscure"—before moving to Cheriton Fitzpaine in Devon. After a long absence from the public eye, she published Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966, having spent years drafting and perfecting it. She intended it as the account of the woman whom Rochester would marry and keep in his attic in Jane Eyre. Begun well before she settled in Bude, the book won the prestigious WH Smith Literary Award in 1967.
In Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys returned to themes of dominance and dependence, especially in marriage; here she depicted the mutually painful relationship between a privileged English man and a Creole woman of Dominica made powerless on being duped and coerced by him and others. Both the man and woman enter into marriage under mistaken assumptions about the other. Her female lead marries Mr. Rochester, and deteriorates in England as the "madwoman in the attic." Rhys portrays this woman from quite a different perspective than that drawn in Jane Eyre. Diana Athill of the André Deutsch house gambled on publishing Wide Sargasso Sea; she and the writer Francis Wyndham helped revive widespread interest in Rhys' work.
From 1960, for the rest of her life, Rhys lived in Cheriton Fitzpaine, a small Devon village she once described as "a dull spot which even drink can't enliven much". Characteristically, she remained unimpressed by her belated ascent to literary fame, commenting, "It has come too late." In an interview shortly before her death, Rhys questioned whether any novelist, not least herself, could ever be happy for any length of time. She said: "If I could choose I would rather be happy than write ... if I could live my life all over again, and choose ...". She died in Exeter on 14 May 1979, at the age of 88, before completing her autobiography, which she had begun dictating only months earlier. In 1979, the incomplete text was published posthumously under the title, Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography.
Selected Bibliography
The Left Bank and Other Stories, 1927
Postures, 1928 (released as Quartet, 1929)
After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie, 1931
Voyage in the Dark, 1934
Good Morning, Midnight, 1939
The Day They Burned the Books, 1960
Wide Sargasso Sea, 1966
My Day: Three Pieces, 1975
Sleep It Off Lady, 1976
Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography, 1979
Jean Rhys Letters 1931–1966, 1984
Early Novels, 1984
The Complete Novels, 1985
Tales of the Wide Caribbean, 1985
The Collected Short Stories, 1987
Let Them Call it Jazz
2fredbacon
Last night I finished reading Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest, the second volume in his Three Body Problem trilogy. The English translation of the first volume, The Three-Body Problem, won the Hugo Award for best novel just a few weeks ago. I think the second volume is an even better book than the first, so it's almost a shoo-in for the best novel award next year.
I seldom read science fiction anymore, but I made a point of reading Cixin's trilogy. They were huge bestsellers in China when they came out ten years ago, and it's easy to see why. They are furiously imaginative hard sci-fi. Cixin approaches many old science fiction tropes with a new perspective. For instance, he uses game theory (although it isn't mentioned as such in the book) to examine the problem of alien contact, giving a credible solution to the Fermi Paradox. His solution isn't worked out in detail, but merely hinted at.
At times, his techno-babble gets on my nerves. I'm still not sure what an infrasonic H-bomb is, or why sound waves at frequencies below human perception (which is what infrasonic means) would cause a fireball to sparkle with infrasonic energy. Still one must give the authors of sweeping science fiction stories some leeway for storytelling.
The book is definitely told from a post-Maoist, Chinese point of view. That's a plus, not a minus, in my opinion. It's an interesting view into the zeitgeist of today's China. It's definitely worth a read.
I seldom read science fiction anymore, but I made a point of reading Cixin's trilogy. They were huge bestsellers in China when they came out ten years ago, and it's easy to see why. They are furiously imaginative hard sci-fi. Cixin approaches many old science fiction tropes with a new perspective. For instance, he uses game theory (although it isn't mentioned as such in the book) to examine the problem of alien contact, giving a credible solution to the Fermi Paradox. His solution isn't worked out in detail, but merely hinted at.
At times, his techno-babble gets on my nerves. I'm still not sure what an infrasonic H-bomb is, or why sound waves at frequencies below human perception (which is what infrasonic means) would cause a fireball to sparkle with infrasonic energy. Still one must give the authors of sweeping science fiction stories some leeway for storytelling.
The book is definitely told from a post-Maoist, Chinese point of view. That's a plus, not a minus, in my opinion. It's an interesting view into the zeitgeist of today's China. It's definitely worth a read.
3jnwelch
Thanks for setting up this new one, Fred.
I'm nearing the end of the very good mystery, The Nature of the Beast, and enjoying the sci-fi satire Redshirts.
I'm nearing the end of the very good mystery, The Nature of the Beast, and enjoying the sci-fi satire Redshirts.
4seitherin
Still reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Liar, and Killers.
5TooBusyReading
Thanks, Fred. I've had The Wide Sargasso Sea on my bookshelf for years, and it's time I actually read it.
I've finished the very funny Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore, although not everyone loves his creepy sense of humor. I've started Strangers Drowning (touchstone is not what I wanted), about ethical extremism, and it is interesting, but not especially well written.
I've finished the very funny Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore, although not everyone loves his creepy sense of humor. I've started Strangers Drowning (touchstone is not what I wanted), about ethical extremism, and it is interesting, but not especially well written.
6rocketjk
I quickly finished Innocent in Death by J.D. Robb, and I've begun the classic Tevye's Daughters by Sholom Aleichem.
7enaid
I'm almost finished with The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides in the Bath. I'm really enjoying it even though I feel such empathy for the women he married and murdered. Jane Robins really makes the time and the people come alive, so to speak.
I feel bad saying this but I didn't really like The Wide Sargasso Sea. I'm afraid that Jane Eyre was so near and dear to my heart that I simply refused to see another character's point of view. That said, thank you fredbacon for starting us off!
I feel bad saying this but I didn't really like The Wide Sargasso Sea. I'm afraid that Jane Eyre was so near and dear to my heart that I simply refused to see another character's point of view. That said, thank you fredbacon for starting us off!
8hemlokgang
Again, nice pick, fredbacon!
I just finished the interesting Nigerian folklore combination of The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Next up to read is The Physics of Sorrow by Bulgarian author, Georgi Gospodinov, a novel published by Open Letter.
I just finished the interesting Nigerian folklore combination of The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Next up to read is The Physics of Sorrow by Bulgarian author, Georgi Gospodinov, a novel published by Open Letter.
9seitherin
Finished the ARC of Killers by Howie Carr. I actually liked the book much more than I thought I would. I'm not usually a fan of "ganster" novels.
Next up is another ARC: Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald.
Next up is another ARC: Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald.
10NarratorLady
Just finished the short and highly entertaining epistolary novel Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher. It's a series of letters of recommendation that an English professor writes on behalf of students seeking fellowships, part- and full-time jobs, and other ways of earning money to pay the onerous price of tuition. The protagonist, world weary Jason Fitger, is hilariously creative with the endless letters he must write but still has time to mess up his love life and complain vociferously about the defunding of his department at the expense of the "sexier" economics department.
No comic character would be compelling without a dose of humanity, and Schumacher manages to imbue her hero with enough so that the reader doesn't just think of him as a curmudgeon but as a (sometimes) lone voice in the wilderness. Much as I enjoyed it, I have a feeling that anyone in academia will appreciate Fitger's dilemma even more than I.
No comic character would be compelling without a dose of humanity, and Schumacher manages to imbue her hero with enough so that the reader doesn't just think of him as a curmudgeon but as a (sometimes) lone voice in the wilderness. Much as I enjoyed it, I have a feeling that anyone in academia will appreciate Fitger's dilemma even more than I.
11Tara1Reads
>10 NarratorLady: I have been dying to read Dear Committee Members. I hear nothing but good things about it.
I am reading The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O'Connor.
I am reading The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O'Connor.
12CarolynSchroeder
I finished My Brilliant Friend and never got into it. I had an increasingly hard time picking it back up until I got to the end and I could only feel utter relief that I was done and did not have to read anymore about anyone in that entire novel. It also confirms my growing feeling not to "stick with it" until a book improves. If by at least 100, I'm struggling, END THE STRUGGLE! I figure even if there is some late-breaking wonder or epiphany, I will consider the ratio of time lost and figure, hey, there are just too many good books out there. What really would I miss in the big scheme of life? It never got better and I honestly do not get the raves this series is receiving. I will forego books 2-4.
I treated myself and started Purity last night, which I love so far (very early on though). But I just am crazy about his writing/novels/weird characters. He can write the heck out of a bunch of dysfunctional folks in a way that keeps me wanting to drop everything and read! I never know whether to laugh, cry or cringe.
I treated myself and started Purity last night, which I love so far (very early on though). But I just am crazy about his writing/novels/weird characters. He can write the heck out of a bunch of dysfunctional folks in a way that keeps me wanting to drop everything and read! I never know whether to laugh, cry or cringe.
13nrmay
Now reading The New Neighbor Leah Stewart and
Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France Carolina Moorehead and
Plain Truth Jodi Picoult
Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France Carolina Moorehead and
Plain Truth Jodi Picoult
15whymaggiemay
>10 NarratorLady: You've made me want to read Dear Committee Members just to find out how the Econ Dept. could be sexier than . . . anything. OMG!
16NarratorLady
>15 whymaggiemay:: They are the gods at this fictional university! They get all the students, all the funding, and brand new digs at the expense of the English Department.
17hemlokgang
Sounds like a few actual universities I could name!
18seitherin
Finished The Liar by Stephen Fry and started The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year 4 edited by Jonathan Strahan.
19snash
Finished The Invention of Wings, historical fiction about two abolitionist, feminist Charlestown sisters in the early 1800's. Well written, and engrossing while being true to history in large part.
20framboise
I've been traveling the past few weeks, so haven't read much. However, I am halfway through with The Girl with Seven Names, a recommendation found here (thanks!). This is the third book about North Korea that I have read this year.
On vacation I downloaded Outline but couldn't get into it.
On vacation I downloaded Outline but couldn't get into it.
21jnwelch
I'm really liking Signs Preceding the End of the World, by Mexican writer Yuri Herrera.
22grkmwk
>12 CarolynSchroeder: I love Franzen for the same reasons!
Finished I'll Give You the Sun yesterday morning. Started my first(!!!) Agatha Christie last night, And Then There Were None.
Finished I'll Give You the Sun yesterday morning. Started my first(!!!) Agatha Christie last night, And Then There Were None.
23Meredy
>20 framboise: That might have been my recommendation. Glad to know you're finding it worth your attention, as I did. I also recommend listening to her TED talk.
I have another NK book on preorder--this one:
A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Incredible True Story of North Korea and the Most Audacious Kidnapping in History
It sounds like it might be a documented version of the same story that was fictionalized in The Orphan Master's Son.
I have another NK book on preorder--this one:
A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Incredible True Story of North Korea and the Most Audacious Kidnapping in History
It sounds like it might be a documented version of the same story that was fictionalized in The Orphan Master's Son.
24Copperskye
>22 grkmwk: And Then There Were None was my first Agatha Christie book, too. I read it a few years ago and really liked it.
I've just started Louise Penny's latest, The Nature of the Beast.
I've just started Louise Penny's latest, The Nature of the Beast.
25mollygrace
I finished Harriet Lane's Alys, Always. a tightly-written, fascinating short novel about a woman who sees something she wants and sets out to have it. I like this writer.
Now I'm reading Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup.
Now I'm reading Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup.
26CarolynSchroeder
Well, gosh, what a disappointment for this heretofore avowed Franzen lover. Purity is filled with some of the most wretched people I've ever had the non-pleasure to cross literary paths with. And gosh, I don't know if he was "writing down" to portray his characters' emotions ... but the sex talk was absolutely goofy, childish and creepy (only "the pecker" knows - are you kidding me?). It REALLY needed further editing. The book is in sections and the first one was pretty good, but the second was torture, the third I had to stop. Ah well, such is life. Plus, he just seems more and more wrapped up in diatribes about ... a whole bunch of crap I don't care about. I simply cannot believe in a world that hateful. Who ARE these people? Oy.
27TooBusyReading
>26 CarolynSchroeder: Yikes! That book had interested me, but the only-the-pecker-knows stuff alone is enough to make me avoid it.
28framboise
#23 Meredy: Thanks, it is an interesting read so far, although not nearly as engrossing as Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick which was an excellent reporting of ordinary citizens' lives in North Korea. I did see the TED talk with Hyeonseo Lee; very moving.
29Meredy
>28 framboise: So far I haven't read anything that tops Demick's treatment of the subject matter.
30ahef1963
I have also read Barbara Demick's work about North Korea, and found it excellent. Hard to read: starving children is not enjoyable reading matter, but worth the time and struggle.
Currently reading two books. I've been trying to read non-fiction as well as fiction, some of each every day. My non-fiction choice is The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee, which so far is very good. For fiction, I'm greatly enjoying Nemesis by Jo Nesbo, whose crime fiction is so very much north of average.
Currently reading two books. I've been trying to read non-fiction as well as fiction, some of each every day. My non-fiction choice is The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee, which so far is very good. For fiction, I'm greatly enjoying Nemesis by Jo Nesbo, whose crime fiction is so very much north of average.
31mollygrace
Neil Gaiman and/or Kazuo Ishiguro fans -- or anyone interested in literary talk -- might want to read this:
http://www.newstatesman.com/2015/05/neil-gaiman-kazuo-ishiguro-interview-literat...
I'd gotten away from my morning readings, but started up again today. I'm especially enjoying the correspondence between poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell Words in Air -- where I'm reading now it's June 1956 and she's telling him about the excitement of winning the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her book, North & South. She's living in Brazil at the time and the press there is quite excited about her achievement, wanting interviews and photographs. She's also thanking Robert and his wife, writer Elizabeth Hardwick, for their Christmas gift, which has finally reached her, six months late -- mail service between Massachusetts and Brazil not being very reliable, you see. EB invites them to come visit her, but I can see from the first line of Robert's next letter that they probably won't be traveling so far for awhile: he announces that he and his wife are expecting a baby. I was nine years old when all this was going on -- about to enter fourth grade. I'm sure I never heard of Bishop, Lowell, or Hardwick until I was in college, and then it would be Hardwick I'd come to admire first -- the two poets later. Hardwick's book of literary criticism, Bartleby in Manhattan and Other Essays, published in 1983, became a special favorite. Anyway, I'm enjoying the glimpse into those past lives.
http://www.newstatesman.com/2015/05/neil-gaiman-kazuo-ishiguro-interview-literat...
I'd gotten away from my morning readings, but started up again today. I'm especially enjoying the correspondence between poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell Words in Air -- where I'm reading now it's June 1956 and she's telling him about the excitement of winning the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her book, North & South. She's living in Brazil at the time and the press there is quite excited about her achievement, wanting interviews and photographs. She's also thanking Robert and his wife, writer Elizabeth Hardwick, for their Christmas gift, which has finally reached her, six months late -- mail service between Massachusetts and Brazil not being very reliable, you see. EB invites them to come visit her, but I can see from the first line of Robert's next letter that they probably won't be traveling so far for awhile: he announces that he and his wife are expecting a baby. I was nine years old when all this was going on -- about to enter fourth grade. I'm sure I never heard of Bishop, Lowell, or Hardwick until I was in college, and then it would be Hardwick I'd come to admire first -- the two poets later. Hardwick's book of literary criticism, Bartleby in Manhattan and Other Essays, published in 1983, became a special favorite. Anyway, I'm enjoying the glimpse into those past lives.
32brenzi
I finished and really enjoyed Louise Penny's newest Gamache mystery, The Nature of the Beast.
Now onto the final book in Elena Ferrante's wonderful four book series called The Neapolitan Books. If The Story of the Lost Child is anywhere near as compelling as the previous three I will be ecstatic. I'm sorry >12 CarolynSchroeder: didn't care for it but I have been living on pins and needles waiting for this last book to be published. Ferrante writes with such urgency and has created such compelling characters that I know I will be at a loss when this is over.
Now onto the final book in Elena Ferrante's wonderful four book series called The Neapolitan Books. If The Story of the Lost Child is anywhere near as compelling as the previous three I will be ecstatic. I'm sorry >12 CarolynSchroeder: didn't care for it but I have been living on pins and needles waiting for this last book to be published. Ferrante writes with such urgency and has created such compelling characters that I know I will be at a loss when this is over.
33Limelite
Got through Thousand Pieces of Gold (LTER selection), an OK fictional biography that had a subject who could have been scintillating, inspirational, and devastating. Her life was completely exotic and adventurous but her biographer wrote so directly and simply that I came away thinking the book should have been aimed at the YA audience.
So, I get to return to Massie's Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman. She's just deposed her feckless husband, Peter III after only 6 mos reign. The book is lively, vivid, and full of complex personalities. Also, a lot of Russian names.
Just about finished David Liss' Conspiracy of Paper. He's excellent at creating fiction around financial history. This novel covers the early days of the London 'Change. Mystery abounds.
So, I get to return to Massie's Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman. She's just deposed her feckless husband, Peter III after only 6 mos reign. The book is lively, vivid, and full of complex personalities. Also, a lot of Russian names.
Just about finished David Liss' Conspiracy of Paper. He's excellent at creating fiction around financial history. This novel covers the early days of the London 'Change. Mystery abounds.
34hemlokgang
Excellent interview, mollygrace. Thanks for recommending it.
I finished The UnAmericans, a debut collection of short stories by Molly Antopol, a confident new literary voice.
Next up for listening is Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese.
I finished The UnAmericans, a debut collection of short stories by Molly Antopol, a confident new literary voice.
Next up for listening is Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese.
35Peace2
>1 fredbacon: Thanks for the reminder - Wide Sargasso Sea is on the TBR pile - I should really get it down and re-read it before I tackle Jane Eyre again..
I finished Flood and Fang by Marcus Sedgwick last week, a children's book which was light humour set in a gothic castle. The story's told by Edgar - the castle raven and guardian who discovers that something evil is going on and has to try and convince the rest of the castle's occupants of both the danger and what to do about it - all this without the power of speech.
I also listened to 2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut which I listened to over at verkaro.net which offers a free audio titles (not a huge selection) but some good ones in there - they seem to be well read so far. Really enjoyed this one - thought provoking despite being so short. Makes me interested in getting some more by him.
I finished Flood and Fang by Marcus Sedgwick last week, a children's book which was light humour set in a gothic castle. The story's told by Edgar - the castle raven and guardian who discovers that something evil is going on and has to try and convince the rest of the castle's occupants of both the danger and what to do about it - all this without the power of speech.
I also listened to 2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut which I listened to over at verkaro.net which offers a free audio titles (not a huge selection) but some good ones in there - they seem to be well read so far. Really enjoyed this one - thought provoking despite being so short. Makes me interested in getting some more by him.
36Meredy
I've finally come around to Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, which I began last night. The premise sounds intriguing, and of course it's been very popular around here. I don't know, though. There's a typo on the second page, and the narrative is in the present tense. I usually don't even start books that are written in the present tense.
37Erick_Tubil
I just finished reading Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
