Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
When the confident orphaned young American woman at the center of The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (published 1881) receives a fortune, it seems she will be able to live her dream life of happiness. Yet, James’ portrait of Isabel Archer’s character, emotional development, and her choices is a complex one. As a
Today begins the Second Annual Ghanian Literature Week, as celebrated by book bloggers around the globe. Kinna Reads is the central organizer of the occasion; see her introductory post. Changes by Ama Ata Aidoo (1991) is about a Ghanian woman searching for her place in a modern world that is steeped in traditional culture. Esi
Maggie Tulliver is a quick-witted child, one with appalling manners for her strict Victorian house and community. She cannot seem to be a proper young lady. When the novel opens, she is about nine years old, and I couldn’t help adoring her childish antics, especially as she regularly brought disappointment to her mother and aunts
Although the RIP challenge technically ended last week with Halloween, I had one more week of ghostly short stories to enjoy. As with past weeks, I enjoyed how each of the stories I read had a different feel. Walter de La Mare’s story was probably my least favorite of the week, but I enjoyed each
Although October is over, I still have a few more RIP short stories to share about. I really put off writing today’s post simply because of the five stories I read, I didn’t really enjoy three of them and the other two (both rereads) are ones I like but still didn’t completely understand. I bet
Summer by Edith Wharton (published 1917) is a short novella about a young woman searching for her place. In some places, it’s been cited as Wharton’s most “erotic” work1. Charity Royall does come to her own sexual awakening over the course of a summer, but Wharton writes about Charity’s choices without too much sexual reference.
This week’s short stories were fantastic. One was hilarious (bet you can guess which one) and two (the Wodehouse and the Hartley) seemed directly related to each other since they were both about writers of fiction. (Unfortunately, the stories I read this week are not in the public domain, so I can’t link to them
Time for three more RIP Stories! I am loving the Ghost Stories collection I have from Everyman’s simply because they are addressing so many different kinds of ghost stories. I’ve really enjoyed the majority of them so far. Saki’s “The Open Window” (1914) was my favorite ghost story from my collection so far. It’s was
The first time I experienced Wilkie Collins’s masterpiece two years ago (gushing positive thoughts here), it was via an amateur audiobook recording at Librivox and it took me more than a month. I loved the unknown suspense as I tried to anticipate what was coming, I loved the plot, I loved the well developed characters,
I’ve said many times I’m not a fan of horror or ghost stories, but the gentle spookiness of the stories in my ghost story collection has been wonderfully fun. This week’s stories, “The Friends of the Friends” by Henry James (1896) and “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs (1902) were very different, but both of
Having finished my third epic-length Anthony Trollope novel (the third in the Palliser series), I’m beginning to think I’m not really a fan of Mr. Trollope’s writing style. His novels have wonderfully constructed and carefully developed plots. The characters are well rounded and personable; I feel I know them upon finishing a novel, and therefore
Tomorrow is Nigerian Independence Day, and to celebrate, another blogger has challenged us to read and post about literature by a Nigerian born author (or an author of Nigerian heritage). The story I chose to read for this project was “Cell One,” the first story in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s collection The Thing Around Your Neck. Here
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