Rebecca Reads

Nobel laureate (1968) Yasunari Kawabata is obviously talented at describing scenes, and there was, in The Old Capital, something refreshing about a slow-paced story of a young woman coming into a realization of herself.
In her free time, Chieko would see the cherry blossoms and visit the cedar forests. It was a celebration of the world [...]

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf is an historical essay, so as I began reading, I wondered how relevant it was for me. After all, I don’t feel I’ve been discriminated against because of my gender and I like where I am with my life and the options I have before me. However, [...]

Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities is full of dark Victorian romance. Muddy roads on a dark night. A secluded house on a corner that echoes footsteps. Cemetaries at night. And, of course, Paris streets that run with wine and then blood because of La Guillotine.  It is a sinister world for the upper [...]

I guess my good streak of wonderful reads had to end. I did not love reading Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, although I don’t know whose fault that is: Churchill’s or the abridger’s. I do know I’m glad I didn’t attempt the 2000+ page version; 470 pages of Churchill’s assessment of military strategies and [...]

Yesterday began Black History Month in the USA! The Harlem Renaissance-themed Classics Circuit began yesterday as well, and I hope you follow along as bloggers unite in reading classic works by African-Americans.
Although this post is not for the Circuit, in preparing for that Classics Circuit, I did a lot of preliminary reading about the era [...]

Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop profoundly moved me.
Perhaps it was Cather’s perfect capture of New Mexico: while I have never been to New Mexico, I feel I now can perfectly imagine the place, the pain, and the joy that the setting evokes. Also, while there are religious elements in the book (after all, [...]

I’ve have been itching to read Jane Austen lately, and although I’ve decided to read Sense and Sensibility for Valentine’s Day, I found a few things that could satisfy my craving right now! A movie or two also may help in the coming weeks.

The first 100 pages of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See in one word: Painful. We followed Lily through her own feet-binding process, and I felt my own feet squirm as I read of it.
I think there’s something about reading historical fiction that occurs in nineteenth century China that is always painful [...]

I thought I understood satire when I read Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” But reading Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels solidified the meaning of satire for me. The two works seemed to illustrate the difference between telling and showing. Reading “A Modest Proposal” was like reading a textbook example of satire, while experiencing the nuances and humor [...]

Since I just spent a long weekend in Utah, I suppose it’s appropriate to review the book I recently read about Mormon architecture! Except for the Kirtland Temple picture, the pictures below (and the links to additional pictures) are ones I took this weekend.
As I read about Chicago architecture last month, I found myself curious [...]