Rebecca Reads

Although To the Lighthouse is told in a similar stream-of-consciousness manner as was Mrs. Dalloway (reviewed two weeks ago), it struck me as different, and I’m not sure why. Was there more plot? Maybe. Was it the setting (the Hebrides versus London)? Maybe. I do know that as I read, I was less emotionally drawn [...]

Because of my positive experience reading Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book, I thought I’d try some more Japanese literature. Amanda wrote a positive review of The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa and I noticed that this was the selected book for the Japanese Literature Book Group run by tanabata at In Spring it [...]

Although I didn’t love Jazz as much as I loved Toni Morrison’s Beloved, I found it to have a similar depth. I know such depth requires me to reread it in order to truly sum up the main point of the novel. Because I’ve only read it once, I’m somewhat stumped as I go to [...]

Today, I am delighted to welcome Edith Wharton to my blog via The Classics Circuit! For other Edith Wharton reviews in the month of January, visit the schedule.

As with the other two Edith Wharton stories I’ve read (The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth), The Touchstone deals with an individual’s challenge in turn-of-the-century [...]

I loved My Antonia by Willa Cather when I read it in high school, and when I went to pick it up, I had some dim memories of characters and setting. I recalled that it was about rural Nebraska. It was about a boy and a girl. They lived on farms and played together. It [...]

Mary Barton is the only living child of John Barton, poor factory worker and Union leader in Manchester. He hoped for better for her, so he apprenticed her to a dressmaker, hoping that she could avoid the dreary life of a factory girl. Mary has high ambitions, hoping to snare the attentions of the young [...]

Medea is another ancient Greek play by Euripides, and yet, it is completely different from the other play I read last year. I read the Rex Warner translation in The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces (seventh edition). As I haven’t read any other translations, all I can say is that this one was refreshingly easy [...]

I had previously seen the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet, so I thought I’d revisit it on CD during my opera phase in November. When I listened to the commentary CD for it (produced by the Chicago Lyric Opera), I discovered that the story was originally a novella by Prosper Merimee, so I downloaded the [...]

In November, I reread Cry, the Beloved Country for my book club and then, because I loved that book so much, I read Too Late the Phalarope, also by Alan Paton.
Although I am glad I had a second experience with Paton’s South Africa, I still much preferred the first novel. I’d be happy to send [...]

The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (music) and Emanuel Schikaneder (libretto) holds a special place in my life: it was an opera my husband took me to when he was courting me. It’s been four years now, but I still feel giddy when I think about that special time when we were [...]