Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
In her memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls tells the story of her neglected childhood, from her father (who is usually drunk) to her mother who is (I believe) mentally ill. With her obvious inner strength and intelligence, Ms Walls rises above poverty and discrimination to become a successful writer. Lily Casey Smith, the protagonist
William Kamkwamba is a bright young man in Malawi. Despite a difficult life helping to run a farm and not having the opportunity to continue his schooling, he determined to figure out how to create electricity for his rural neighborhood. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (co-written with Bryan Mealer) is his memoir of his
In 1955, a mother of five took a vacation to the beach. For two weeks, she had no husband or children seeking her, no hot water, no telephone, and no obligations, other than to reach inside for much needed rejuvenation as she wrote, searched for pretty shells, and pondered life. In Gift from the Sea,
As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been struggling to post thoughts on the books I’ve read recently. But I saw this article and knew I needed to get these thoughts up now. The topic is an interesting one, and that article about the book I just read reminded me to get in gear and gather my
Madame Bovary was a landmark book in the ways it blended romanticism and realism. Yet, its author, Gustave Flaubert despised the minutiae of everyday life, as well as the traditions and morals of society. The story of his life and how he, who despised realism, came to write a monumental novel of realism, is particularly
Jane Austen: A Life Revealed by Catherine Reef (to be published June 6, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcout) is a short biography of the authoress geared for young readers. It has a second dimension, though, and that is as a biography of the novels that Austen created. As an adult, I must admit that I
Upon my third dedicated attempt to read The Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft, I loved it! I was in the right mood to read it, and I gave myself a fixed block of time to get started in it. However, since I finished reading it on my Kindle app for Android
I am not normally a reader of memoirs, but I’ve been finding some that work for me. The books listed in the Peresphone Books catalog have been calling me lately, and Karen’s recent review of A London Child of the 1870s prompted me to look for it in my local library system. As you know,
Same Kind of Different As Me (by Ron Hall and Denver Moore, 2006) is the perfect book club book for our group this month. We recently enjoyed (and yet struggled through) the deep Christian doctrines in Mere Christianity. This one is a true story about practical Christian living. Same Kind of Different as Me captures
Twitters is alive today with tweets about International Women’s Day. Since I hadn’t heard of it before, I looked it up to see what’s it’s about. Each country or organization can choose it’s own theme to focus on to celebrate women. The United Nations theme for 2011 is this: Equal access to education, training and
I enjoyed my reread of Mere Christianity probably more than I enjoyed my first (and second) read of it. C.S. Lewis is just a master at capturing his points with analogies. It was a difficult book for our book club, and we all wished we’d split the book into two meetings, or just read part
Reading Round about a Pound a Week gave me a new perspective on the inequality that comes from poverty. As the title indicates, the book is a description of a 1909-1913 study of 42 families in the Lambeth neighborhood in England that live on about a £1 a week. It is no easy task getting
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