We finished reading Lord of the Flies (1954), number 49 on the BBC book list, by William Golding. I read it to my 11-year-old daughter, who has been recovering from a tonsillectomy and an adenoidectomy this week. I've read it before, but I had forgotten most of it. Oh my. I feel a loss of... Continue Reading →
A year or so ago, my awesome sister Afton gave my oldest daughter some books for her birthday. One of them was a copy of The Egypt Game (1967) by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. As Olivia opened this present, all of us watching oohed and ahhed about the book, remembering how much we had enjoyed it... Continue Reading →
I picked up Mrs. Parkington (1942) by Louis Bromfield at a thrift store some years ago. My copy is a first edition, but after reading this one, I’m pretty sure it isn’t really worth anything. I first started reading it a few years ago. After I got through the first page, I thought, “This book... Continue Reading →
Main Street (1920) by Sinclair Lewis is a critique of capitalism through a feminist lens, among other things. The novel is about Carol Milford who marries Dr. Will Kennicott just after college and moves to the small town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. She immediately doesn’t fit in, and she spends years trying to reform the... Continue Reading →
I have ancestors—my great grandmother, Alabama Gray (she preferred to be called Bonnie), in fact—who traveled from Oklahoma to California between 1910 and 1920, just before the dust bowl and depression were pushing people from the mid-west to the west in search of work. I have known this for some time now, and recently, in... Continue Reading →
I have been wanting to read Madame Bovary (1856) by Gustave Flaubert and number 85 on the BBC book list for quite some time. Years, even. I finally got to it by listening to it on audiobook while driving to school, and I am glad I did. I know it was scandalous in its time,... Continue Reading →
“And Wang Lung, hearing this, felt his mouth suddenly dry and parched and his voice came from him in a whisper, ‘Silver, then! Silver and gold! Anything to the very price of my land!’” (p. 139). That quote is on the cover of my seventh grade English portfolio because, at that time, Pearl S. Buck’s... Continue Reading →
My Internet has been down for two days. Two days! It seemed like we would die. I could only check email on my phone (which is new, and I barely know how to use it), we had nothing to watch in the evenings because we watch everything on Netflix, and I couldn’t check flights or... Continue Reading →
I read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868) as a youth, but wanted a review of it before I posted my thoughts. So, I listened to it on CD during my drive to school. I will post my reaction to the content of the novel later this week, but I had to dedicate an entire... Continue Reading →
Wallace Stegner’s (1909-1993) masterpiece Angle of Repose (1971; Pulitzer 1972) explores the marriage relationships of Susan and Oliver Ward and Lyman and Ellen Ward and the free-love relationship of Shelly Rasmussen and Larry. Lyman, a retired historian, writes a history of his grandparents’ lives after his wife leaves him for his surgeon during his struggle... Continue Reading →
The Bookshelf of Emily J. 