Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
I was a skeptic. I had heard the hype and still I avoided The Help by Kathryn Stockett. My book club decided to discuss it this month and I grudgingly put a hold for it at the library. The hold came in and I let it sit on my TBR shelf for a week before
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,
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is creepy. Dorian Gray, as an innocent and attractive young man, in a fit of passion exclaimed: How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. …
Although Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a slim book (124 pages), the issues raised are relevant today. I wouldn’t say Gilman’s writing is stunning or beautiful. The plot is not engaging or page-turning. It is predictable and overly “convenient.” The characters are stereotypes on steroids. But rather than expecting any of those other things,
I first encountered Sei Shonagon in a college course about the personal essay. We talked about her tone in the essay “Hateful Things,” and I wrote about the credibility of her critique. “Hateful Things” is an interesting piece when considered as an essay because it doesn’t read like any other essay I read for that
In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf captures a woman’s joys and frustrations in a single day by revealing her thought processes. Although some other character’s thoughts are captured as well, it was Clarissa Dalloway that I related 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
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
In the end, I sighed with satisfaction. Yes, everything would be alright in Miss Matty Jenkyn’s town of Cranford. I wasn’t sure I liked Elizabeth’s Gaskell’s Cranford for most of my reading, and to be honest, the snippets of life in the town of Cranford irritated me at first. But in the end, it all
Oliver Twist surprised me. Oliver’s story is familiar to me: I watched the musical many times as a young girl (my mother fast forwarding past That Scene). I loved the music and found the characters delightful. I always loved Artful Dodger! And yet, when I read the book, I was surprised. I expected this book
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
Jane Addams was born shortly before the Civil War to a privileged family in rural Illinois. After graduating from Rockford College, Addams determined to “live with the poor” (page 44). In the coming decades and for the remainder of her life, Addams was an influential leader for Chicago social reform. Beyond her leadership, though, Addams
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