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Thursday, February 01, 2007

Books for January

Ratings from five*; if the title's not bold, it's a re-read. (LIKE YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS ALREADY.)

1. Jane of Lantern Hill -- L.M. Montgomery -- 3.5
   
   • I got kind of a craving for LMM in December, I think because of having read Anne for my dad/Librivox. So I started Jane around Christmas. It's one of the LMM books I read less often than the rest (in other words, it's not the Anne series or The Blue Castle, I guess) so it was quite refreshing to read it again. It's the most modern in feel of all of her books (fitting because I'm pretty sure it was the last one she wrote before she died, right? Or did she do one of the out-of-sequence Annes last?), dealing with marital separation and ping-pong parenting and worries about divorce, and one of LMM's truly bad antagonists, with no redeeming characteristics that I can find. Don't expect Anne, but this is a nice light read with pretty little bits about late-1930's housekeeping, and a girl who takes a lion for a walk, and stuff.




2. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court -- Mark Twain -- 3.5
   
   • I listened to the Librivox recording of most of this, and then I finished up with my copy of the book (quicker that way, and I could read it in bed. The iPod didn't go with me to bed, or I'd have squished it, and maybe, I dunno, BROKEN IT, and had to send it in FOR REPAIRS). This story was pretty much not at all what I expected. It was a) far far more political than I thought -- Mark Twain hates the idea of an established church and he wasn't too keen on Catholicism either, or chivalry, or, well, England -- and b) much gorier -- in a funny kind of way, and in just a couple of brief parts -- than I had figured it might be. All in all it's a good story and I recommend it if you like historical fiction a lot or Mark Twain even a little. The Librivox recording is quite good, and having just looked at that page I will say that the summary there is far and away better than anything I could write so you should just go read that and skip this review. Oops.

   
   

3. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio -- Terry Ryan -- 4
   
   • I was watching the movie of this when I saw a 'based on the book' notice, and, as always, got a little miffed that I hadn't been made aware of this sooner so that I could have read it first as is my rule (perhaps a little notice in Netflix -- alas, poor Netflix, I knew them well -- where you have to type in a little summary of the book before they'll let you get the movie. *evil cackle*). In this case it wasn't such a bad thing, as the book had a much lighter feel than the movie. The father's problems were there in the book, but in my opinion, they didn't take over the whole mood like they do in the movie. Thank you Hollywood. Anyway, it was good that I hadn't read the book yet because it would have been quite a negative surprise going the other way. And I truly really did like this biography -- it's fun (all the little sprinklings of verse with which Mrs. Ryan won or didn't win her prizes were priceless), informative, interesting, clever, and well-written. Like all good biographies, it provides insight not only into a person's life, but into the times and places (in this case, place) where the person lived. In this case that's the baby-boom Midwest, in a very large family (speaking of baby booms) without a lot of money, but with a great sense of humor and the ability to laugh through adversity -- and make a living at it.

   
   

4. The Awakening -- Kate Chopin -- 3.5 for the book, 4.5 for the Librivox recording
   
   • I tend to think of this book on several different levels. As literature, it's brilliantly written, stirring, evocative. It brings late-19th-century Louisiana to life. As a cultural phenomenon, it's, well, phenomenal. A book with an adulterous, 'liberated' female protagonist published in 1899 is not something you see every day. From what I understand this book pretty much ended Chopin's career, and was not really discovered by the public until 1970's feminists unearthed it. As a blueprint for life, frankly, it sucks. Well, I think it does; many modern women do not and they're fully entitled to that opinion just as I am to mine blah blah blah. Chopin's heroine becomes dissatisfied with marriage and motherhood, falls in love with a younger man, moves out of her husband's house, and determines to live for herself and not for others. Not too shocking by today's standards, but still not the way I personally find fulfilment.
     
     As an audiobook, especially as a free volunteer-produced public-domain audiobook, this is amazing. If you are a woman with an iPod (or whatever) I strongly suggest you download and listen to this just to hear the way these eight women bring life to this story. I won't tell you who my favorites were; I'll let you choose your own as I think they all did a brilliant job with this text. I listened to much of it on a long walk around the area where my parents live, taking pictures and just listening and it's not an afternoon I will soon forget.

   
   

5. The Rosary -- Florence L. Barclay -- 4
   
   • I had a few chapters of this to read for a collaborative project at Librivox (hi Ria!). I couldn't find a copy of the book, so one night I thought I'd read a few more chapters just to get some context for the sections I'd recorded. I ended up sitting up reading the entire book online in one night. SO SO ROMANTIC SIGH. It has echoes of Jane Eyre, with a plain heroine who's beautiful in the eyes of the man who loves her but who can't believe it until after he goes blind *ahem*. If you can find this book, read it (Project Gutenberg has it if you don't mind reading from a screen), or wait until the Librivox production is done and listen to it, if you like romantic stories that make you catch your breath from time to time in a Jane-Eyre-in-the-hallway-with-Mr.-Rochester-after-the-fire / Mr.-Darcy-encountering-Lizzy-by-surprise-at-Pemberley kind of way. You know what I am talking about, oh yes.

   
   

6. Emily of New Moon -- L.M. Montgomery -- 4
   
   • Emily is as different from Anne as moonlight is from sunlight. (I didn't make that up, we say it on the KS list all the time.) I recommend this book, even though it has its flaws -- I dislike the narrator's occasional intrusions, personally, and I have never liked Teddy -- because overall it is quintessential LMM. It's more autobiographical than Anne -- whereas Anne writes a little bit here and there for fun, Emily is a writer who MUST write, whose stories and poems seem to come through her. This is something that I personally cannot identify with, but apparently a lot of writery types can and do. Read it, and then tell me whether you think Dean is creepy. It's an ongoing debate, even within my own self. Of course, for the full Dean picture you have to read all three Emily books. Even though the two later ones are not quite as good as this first one, they're still worth the time it takes to read them.

*Here, a rating scheme, for this month anyway:

5: This book is perfect. READ THIS NOW THIS MEANS YOU.
4.5: I love this book.
4: I am enthusiastic about this book.
3.5: Hey, this one's pretty good.
3: Not bad but I'm not going to go around raving about it.
2.5: Almost bad.
2: Pretty darn lame.
1.5: This sucked but I finished reading it.
1: So bad I gave up.
I've never given one, but I suppose a .5 would mean I threw it against the wall as I gave up.

Comments

Posted by: debi at February 1, 2007 04:09 PM

Posted by: Maria at February 4, 2007 03:08 AM

Posted by: Courtney at February 8, 2007 04:11 PM

Posted by: Elizabeth at February 12, 2007 04:23 AM

Posted by: Elizabeth at February 12, 2007 04:47 AM

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