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Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

Posted on January 6, 2011
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Reason(s) for Reading:
  • I wanted to end the year with something insightful, beautiful and poignant – Anne always provides all of those in these stories.
I  also recommend:

Summary from GoodReads:

Avonlea is the prettiest little town on Prince Edward Island, which is the prettiest little island in all of Canada. Anne had come here as an orphan—a skinny redhead showing up on the steps of Green Gables with a shabby suitcase and a heart full of dreams.

Anne’s dream of finding a home had come true. But now she is a young woman, with new dreams, She has a teaching job in the city, with a chance to become a published magazine writer.

And an even greater adventure awaits: Anne is about to begin her first romance—with a handsome Boston millionaire whose dreams are very different from hers….

My Review:

I started reading about Anne’s antics when I was a young girl, not yet a teenager, and had an imagination to rival even this beautiful, darling red-headed girl.  As you can imagine (and like so many other girls), I fell promptly in love with Anne after reading the first book and hungrily devoured every book in the series.  I felt both the “flying high with anticipation” and the “thud” that came after finishing each book, knowing that I was one step closer to having to put Anne away.

It’s those thuds I sadly remember the most clearly.  I’ve gotten my Anne fix over the years by watching the wonderful PBS movies that go under the same names.. but they just aren’t the same – and this book is a good example of why.

So many beautiful characters are left out of the stories.  Mr. Harrison and his rascally parrot (who’s Jersey cow is the one sold, NOT Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s).  The adorable Paul Irving, his American father and… not Anne who is the romantic interest, but the lovely Miss Lavender and her house of echoes.  And then – I’d totally forgotten about the twins – Davy and Dora!  Such a perfect thing having lovely twins coming back into Anne’s life.

I loved this book and am glad I’m finally re-reading the series again. It was a beautiful way to end 2010 and helped me approach 2011 with hope, a few stars in my eyes and a sense of peace.

Check out these review(s):

Always with a Book

Bippity Boppity Book

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Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Posted on January 5, 2011
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Reason(s) for Reading:
  • Chose this book to read for The Gilmore Girls challenge
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Summary from GoodReads:

The epic battle between man and monster reaches its greatest pitch in the famous story of Frankenstein. In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor himself to the very brink. How he tries to destroy his creation, as it destroys everything Victor loves, is a powerful story of love, friendship …and horror.

My Review:

Frankenstein is definitely not light reading. You have to invest yourself, push yourself through pages and pages of description of snow and nature to get to the meat of the story – and, as I found after pushing myself, it was worth it because the meat of the story was that good.

I remember seeing a Frankenstein movie as a teenager and being thoroughly unimpressed by it.  However, the book is nothing like what I remember that movie being – and then I find out that this story that struggles with morality and creation of life was written by an 18 year old girl.. and my mind is officially blown.

I think one of the most tender, touching moments in a book read this year was the scenes involving Frankenstein and the de Lacey’s.  As I read I found it easy to put myself in the situation of the de Lacey’s, but not quite as easy to figure out just what my actions would be.  The monster was easy to feel pity for, but still – is pity enough?

And what of Frankenstein himself?  Such an egotistical, disagreeable man – but still, was he worth pity as well?  He loses so much that is dear to him, punishment enough for playing God?  So many questions rise out of the story and again, that is exactly why I feel so much respect for the 18 year old Mary Shelley who was mature enough to write a story with such depth.

Fantastic book, if a bit wordy, and I’m glad I finally got around to reading it.

Check out these review(s):

Hey Lady!

A Literary Odyssey

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Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Posted on January 4, 2011
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Reason(s) for Reading:
  • Chose this book to read for The Gilmore Girls challenge
I  also recommend:
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Summary from GoodReads:

Conceived by a shy British don on a golden afternoon to entertain ten-year-old Alice Liddell and her sisters, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderlandand Through the Looking-Glass have delighted generations of readers in more than eighty languages. “The clue to the enduring fascination and greatness of the Alice books,” writes A. S. Byatt in her Introduction, “lies in language. . . . It is play, and word-play, and its endless intriguing puzzles continue to reveal themselves long after we have ceased to be children.

My Review:

Earlier this year I read a book by Melanie Benjamin entitled Alice I Have Been which dealt with a “behind the scenes” story on Alice, the infamous little girl in this story.  To be honest, it traumatized me a little bit and I wasn’t sure how I would feel when I re-read Alice in Wonderland in the future… and I’m happy to say that the charm of the story still exists, even after reading some rather disturbing accounts of its author.

My memories of Alice in Wonderland are clouded quite a bit by the Disney film – but I have some memories of reading this book as a child and not liking it much.  As an adult, I found I enjoyed the book a whole lot more.  The puns, the humor and the songs (which used to bore me) came to life and made me laugh and shake my head in amusement.  I found similarities in the writing style of Lewis Carrol and L. Frank Baum (especially in the use of puns), as I read both series parallel to one another.

I love ending out each year by reading classics, books that I intended to make time for during the year and just couldn’t.  Alice in Wonderland was a light, easy to read pick during a week that is normally chaotic and with my enjoyment of the book this time around, I might just have to make it a yearly happening.

Check out these review(s):

Swords for Fighting

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Journey through Oz – Books 1 & 2

Posted on January 1, 2011
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As 2011 begins I decided to take a trip through a series of books I’ve never read before.  I’ll be deviating a bit from my normal review format to just talk about the Oz series by L. Frank Baum every Saturday for the next few weeks.  If you haven’t read these books, I invite you to join me – each are short and easy to read and are so much fun.  If you have read them, perhaps I can help you reconnect with the wonder you felt as you went through them the first time.  I always love talking to folks as they read through books of my childhood and hope that you do too.

Summary from GoodReads:

- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:

After a cyclone transports her to the land of Oz, Dorothy must seek out the great wizard in order to return to Kansas.

- The Land of Oz:

The second Oz book. A sequel to the Wizard of Oz that follows the further adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and a young boy named Tip who escapes from Mombi the Witch with the magic Powder of Life. Includes 16 color and numerous b&w illustrations

My Review:

As a child, The Wizard of Oz was a constant, a movie that would be watched several times in the course of the year. We’d laugh at the scarecrows antics, sigh at the tin man’s desire for a heart and giggle at the cowardly lion. The wicked witch would scare us and Toto would make us want a dog – so I’m not quite sure how it happened that I never managed to get around to reading the books.

I decided to end 2010 (and start 2011′s reviews) off with reading all fifteen Oz books by L. Frank Baum. I’m glad I made that decision, as after this single book I found myself falling in love in a completely different way with the story.

Simplistic and perfect, Baum’s writing is easily understood by young and old alike. There’s enough of a difference between the book and the movie to keep you interested, even if you’ve seen the movie as many times as I have (or more!). I laughed and enjoyed myself thoroughly … now just to find a pretty set to put on my shelves.

————–

While I didn’t enjoy The Marvellous Land of Oz as much as The Wizard of Oz, it still had its moments.

In The Marvellous Land of Oz, Dorothy has been returned home and the Scarecrow reigns on the throne of the Emerald City. In a nearby land, a young boy, Tip, serves an old sorceress (not a witch, because those are the most powerful).

Tip and the Scarecrow end up crossing paths and a whole slew of new characters are introduced – Jack Pumpkinhead, The Gump (a flying mismash of things) and others were fun to read about, but a bit.. overly silly. I don’t know if it’s because The Wizard of Oz is just so beloved that I overlook the cheesiness or this book was overly cheesy, but it was just a bit over the top for me.

Still, it was a fun read and I’ll continue to press on through my personal journey through Oz.

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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Posted on December 25, 2010
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Reason(s) for Reading:
  • It’s the Season!

Summary from GoodReads:

Ebenezer Scrooge is a heartless old miser who hates everything, especially Christmas. Then one mysterious Christmas eve, Scrooge is visited by three spirits who take him on a fantastic journey and teach him the true meaning of the season.

My Review:

Once again I find it a bit daunting to write a review of what  is arguably one of the most well-known classic stories.  I, like most people I know, grew up with Scrooge (although the form has changed).  From Donald Duck to Jim Carrey, I’ve listened to the story of the grumpy, old, miserly man and his miraculous change of heart on one fateful Christmas Eve.

My aunt actually ordered A Christmas Carol for her kindle and I saw the email and thought – oh, that would make a great read-along book for December.  Perfect season, I’ve never read it.. but oh.. it’s DICKENS.  I don’t know about you, but just the name  Dickens is enough to strike fear deep into my heart.  I struggled so much with A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield back in the day that, although interested to see  how the book was, I approached this story with not a little bit of trepidation.

It also helped to know it was short.  I’ll admit it.

For those of you who haven’t read the book, let me just say – put aside everything you know about Dickens from his other works and give this one a shot.  It’s remarkably easy to understand and, although he can go on, due to the shortness of the book as a whole, the descriptions don’t get too much out of  hand.

There were quite a few things in the book that surprised me – details that really rounded out the story much more than the movies ever have.  I regret that I’ve let all these years go by without establishing the reading of this story as atradition for myself, but it is something I intend to change in the upcoming years.

Check out these review(s):

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Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

Posted on November 30, 2010
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Summary from GoodReads:

Holly Golightly is generally up all night drinking cocktails and breaking hearts. She hasn’t got a past. She doesn’t want to belong to anything or anyone, not even to her one-eyed rag-bag pirate of a cat. One day Holly might find somewhere she belongs.

My Review:

My first experience with Breakfast at Tiffany’s was, like I imagine mosts to be, colored with Audrey Hepburn’s charm and George Peppard’s blue eyes.  While it’s not one of my favorite movies of Hepburns (Roman Holiday holds that honor), it has it’s quirky, sweet moments and is quite the classic.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of Truman Capote’s writing, but I did expect a little more than I got, I think.  Without Hepburn there to make the story flow and to breathe life into the dialogue I found the book to be a little more.. snobbish.  Although, strip away the view and I guess that’s exactly who Holly Golightly was, a snobbish, flirtatious girl who treated people pretty abominably, when you actually think about it.

The story is only 111 pages long, and the one thing that it did have going for it was its short length.  I’m still not sure how they managed to make a 2ish hour movie out of it (which is actually longer than the time it took for me to read the book), but it does explain why the movie seems to drag in some places.  The book flows quite a bit and time did pass quickly while I was reading it.  But, overall, I think for a more charming example of the type of girl Capote portrays Holly Golightly to be.. I would suggest you look to Winifred Watson’s Delysia Lafosse from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. She’s what the perfect written Holly Golightly would be to me, utterly charming, full of life and.. essentially, who Audrey Hepburn portrayed Holly to be on the screen.

Check out these review(s):

Reading and Ruminations

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1984 by George Orwell

Posted on October 30, 2010
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Reason(s) for Reading:
  • This was October’s Read-Along book.
  • I’ve heard people talking about it, but had absolutely no idea what the fuss was about.
I also recommend:

Summary from GoodReads:

Portrays a terrifying vision of life in the future when a totalitarian government, considered a “Negative Utopia,” watches over all citizens and directs all activities, becoming more powerful as time goes by.

My Review:

It’s always a bit daunting to me to write a review of a “classic” book.  I mean, a simple google search will provide all sorts of information and scholarly thoughts about the story held in the pages of 1984.

So instead of trying to explore the deeper meaning, let me talk about the things that really hit me hard.

- I had no idea that Big Brother came from this book.  I’ve grown up hearing the term bandied about, but never really understood where it came from and what it referred to.  I know now, and it frightens me.

- I think the most potent part of the book was, for me, the end of Part One.  When Winston opens a note passed to him and reads what is written there, I felt as it my heart skipped a beat because, of all the possibilities, that was one I was not expecting.

- What was most frightening to me was, as I was reading Goldstein’s writings held within the book, I found myself understanding why things were the way they were.  Things began to make sense – this in a book that made no sense to me when I first started it.

- All my dystopian reading I think prepared me for this book.  If I had read it a few years ago, I might not have appreciated it as much as I appreciate it now.  I totally get that there are those out there who didn’t like it, but I really enjoyed the stimulation to think it provided me.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Check out these review(s):

Chrisbookarama

A Bookshelf Monstrosity

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North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Posted on October 12, 2010
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Reason(s) for Reading:
  • North and South was voted to be our September Book of the Month!
  • I love Victorian Literature – Jane Austen, Wilkie Collins.. all fantastic.
  • (I have a confession, for a very long time I thought this book was about the Civil war, silly yes?)
I recommend:

Summary from GoodReads:

North and South is a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published in book form in 1855 originally appeared as a twenty-two-part weekly serial from September 1854 through January 1855 in the magazine Household Words, edited by Charles Dickens. The title indicates a major theme of the book: the contrast between the way of life in the industrial north of England and the wealthier south, although it was only under pressure from her publishers that Gaskell changed the title from its original,Margaret Hale.

The book is a social novel that tries to show the industrial North and its conflicts in the mid-19th century as seen by an outsider, a socially sensitive lady from the South. The heroine of the story, Margaret Hale, is the daughter of a Nonconformist minister who moves to the fictional industrial town of Milton after leaving the Church of England. The town is modeled after Manchester, where Gaskell lived as the wife of a Unitarian minister. Gaskell herself worked among the poor and knew at first hand the misery of the industrial areas.

My Review:

So as noted above, yes – for a long time when I saw the title of this book I thought it was about the Civil War.  And I thought it would be too sad to read – so laugh at me now, get it all out of your system.

My friend, Hannah, mentioned Elizabeth Gaskell as a writer who portrayed her strong women to be beautiful.  Coming on the heels of a Wilkie Collins read, this was refreshing.  Collins described his strong women as ugly (even going so far to describe the hair on their faces), but Gaskell’s Margaret in North and South is beautiful, haughty, elegant and everything you could wish for.

When I was reading others opinions on this book I kept noticing a comparison to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and further.. a comparison of Mr. Thornton to Mr. Darcy.  They couldn’t be more different, in my opinion.  While both have an incredibly strong bond to their family, I actually saw more of a resemblance between Margaret and Mr. Darcy.  Margaret had that same turn up of her nose, the same pride that Darcy struggled with through Pride and Prejudice.  Although, of course, she was sillier than a man would have been, still – they were very, very alike.

I enjoyed reading the story, I’ll admit.  There was quite a bit of drama happening over the littlest things, but mostly I enjoyed the look at the workers unions and the way of business at the time.  In Austen’s books we only get a picture of the drawing rooms and the gossip, but Elizabeth Gaskell takes us out of the drawing rooms and into the politics and the poverty.  It was that aspect of the book I enjoyed the most.

I’m sure I’ll recommend North and South to friends in the future.  It doesn’t quite rank up there with some of my other favorites, but it was enjoyable enough.  However, it is not good fodder for discussion unless you really want to dive into the politics. I wouldn’t recommend it for a book club reading.

Check out these review(s):

The Blue Stocking Society

One Librarians Book Reviews

The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader

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Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Posted on September 1, 2010
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RebeccaRebecca by Daphne du Maurier

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Short Summary:

Sixty years after REBECCA was first published, Daphne du Maurier’s unsurpassed masterpiece continues to enthrall readers with romance and suspense, as the second Mrs. de Winter narrates the haunting events surrounding her marriage to Maxim de Winter and her growing obsession with his first wife, the beautiful, now dead Rebecca. Includes excerpts from the author’s personal notes and essays, exclusive to this edition.

My Review:

This has been an interesting month for me – between reading Wilkie Collins’ masterpiece, THE WOMAN IN WHITE and now REBECCA.

Daphne du Maurier takes us inside the life of the second Mrs. de Winter; like Collins’ main protaganist, Marian, the second Mrs. de Winter is a plain woman although she lacks the backbone shown by Marian. From there on out the similarities end.

I don’t recall ever being told the name of Mrs. de Winter but I think that was the point of the story. I found myself caught up in the dark, gothic-feeling descriptions of Manderley and its grounds and could even hear the sound of the sea in portions of the book.

Being unfamiliar with the story I had hoped that I would be shocked or taken by surprise at the ending, but unfortunately, it was one I guessed. Still I enjoyed the unfolding of the twists and turns and the storytelling very much.

The characters in this book were exquisitely written; Mr. de Winter a brooding, dark and handsome man and the second Mrs. de Winter an innocent, pure and naive creature. They make this story – but not alone.

Although we never actually get to meet Rebecca it’s fascinating to see her character develop through the words of Mrs. Danvers, Beatrice and through Mrs. de Winter’s own imagination.

As I read this book I couldn’t help but think … what would it be like to step into the shoes, the home, the life of a beautiful, vivacious woman? Would I survive it?

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Shepherd of the Hills by Harold Bell Wright

Posted on June 13, 2010
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Shepherd of the Hills Shepherd of the Hills by Harold Bell Wright

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Summary:

Prior to his artistic and writing career, Harold Bell Wright served as a minister. In The Shepherd of the Hills he writes about a man who comes from the world of cities to the beautiful Ozark hill country. Among the people of the district, with their simple, direct ideals and way of life, he finds the peaceful atmosphere he craves, while his more intellectual philosophy and character come to be valuable elements in the lives of his new friends. From his relationship with Sammy Lane and the Matthews family arise in dramatic fashion the gripping situations and thrilling incidents that bring him into a peculiarly intimate connection with these people, their country, and their simple life.

My review:

The first time I read this book I was about 9 years old. It sat, along with several other Harold Bell Wright books, on my dad’s bookshelf. I can still feel the old cover if I close my eyes and imagine it. So it’s safe to say there’s a lot of memories held within this books pages.

I remember shortly after I read it my family took a trip to the Ozarks in Missouri. It’s pretty famous there and there is even a life showing held out doors. As I re-read the story over the last few days I found myself recalling bits and pieces of seeing it there, live on the stage.

Wright does such a fantastic job of describing his characters. From the young giant, Grant Matthews (Young Matt) to the beautiful Sammy Lane. Every character has a unique feel to him or her and.. well there just aren’t words to describe how much I enjoyed re-acquainting myself with them.

If you are a nature lover, you would love this book. If you love good, solid stories dealing with life, love, death, heartache and a return to faith, you would love this book. And even though the book is somewhat dated its principles still apply to today. This book is one of my favorites and I’m just sad I haven’t made time to revisit it sooner.

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