Rebecca Reads

The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling contain much more than the story of the adopted wolf-boy, Mowgli, who is probably the most familiar of Kipling’s characters.
Kipling’s Jungle Books are collections of stories about animals and people from around the world. Each story seems to be rooted in traditional facts about [...]

I am not very familiar with the political situation before, during, and after World War II. But after reading the best speeches of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, I am impressed that his powerful, confident speeches were a deciding factor in the perseverance of the United Kingdom through the trying times of World War II. [...]

Booker Prize-winning Life and Time of Michael K by Nobel-prizing winning J.M. Coetzee was a challenging but rewarding read for me.

I read Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories because I wanted to read this Nobel-prize winning author and also because I remembered the imaginative premise of his magical world and wanted to experience his world as an adult. I very much enjoyed reading them again, although there are some “politically incorrect” stereotypes in them I hadn’t [...]

John Steinbeck’s East of Eden has been banned before. I’m not surprised. It deals with attempted fratricide, prostitution, and murder. One character, Cathy, is described as a monster. But as I read it and recognized the obvious references and echoes of Genesis, I was overcome and enlightened. Combining the plot with the incredibly well written [...]

My writing teachers have always instructed to “show not tell.” I didn’t understand it, really, until I began to read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden last month.