Tagged: classics

Book Review / Books and Reading

Classics Club #32: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevesky

Was it really the hag I killed? It was myself I killed, not her! I murdered myself in one fell blow, for all time! It has taken me many false starts to try and read Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, but I finally managed to do the deed. I’m not sure why it has taken so much effort for me to read this Russian classic. The characters are well developed and believable. The plot is suspenseful and compelling. The issues it explores are timeless and significant. And...

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Book Review / Books and Reading

Classics Club #21: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

I finished Little Women five months ago, but am only now getting around to writing this review. I have to admit that my memory of reading the book has faded into a vague sense of enjoyment with few details about what I liked or disliked. That may have nothing to do with the book, since I have been quite busy since then. However, I remember thinking that while the book was pleasant, I enjoyed it less than The Secret Garden but more than She: A History of Adventure, which were the last two...

She by H. Rider Haggard

Book Review / Books and Reading

Classics Club #20: She by H. Rider Haggard

She is the landmark fantasy/adventure novel by H. Rider Haggard that has influenced authors like J.R.R. Tolkien, Rudyard Kipling, and George R.R. Martin. It has appeared on lists like Fantasy: The 100 Best Books, Horror: The 100 Best Books, and Classics of Science Fiction. Serialized from 1886 to 1887, She was one of the first “lost world” stories, and laid the foundation for stories featuring characters like Doc Savage and Indiana Jones. In She, Horace Holly narrates the tale of his journey with his adoptive son Leo Vincey to the heart...

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Book Review / Books and Reading

Classics Club #19: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a gem of a book. It’s one of those magical stories that book lovers appreciate in a special way. Not that it’s about books or reading, but it’s the kind of story that reveals itself and its characters slowly and gently, as only a book can. It’s about growing up and discovering the healing power of life. It’s a book for children of all ages, like The Wind in the Willows or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The story centers...

Musketeer detail

Book Review / Books and Reading

Classics Club #18: Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is one of my favorite all-time books. I might even put it up there with the likes of The Lord of the Rings, Master and Commander, and Don Quixote. And like the characters in those other books, the characters in The Three Musketeers are old friends of mine. I love hanging out not only with D’Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos, but also with their servants Planchet, Mousqueton, Grimaud, and Bazin. I’ve read the book maybe three of four times in my life, most recently in...

Kristin Lavransdatter

Books and Reading

Classics Club #17: Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset

So a man must learn to accept, when he produces offspring from his own body, that his heart will burn if he loses them or if the world goes against them. God, who gave them souls, is the one who owns them—not I. Kristin Lavrandsatter by Sigrid Undset is a book that everyone should read, for a multitude of reasons. First, it is a beautiful work of historical fiction set in medieval Norway, a time of political unrest, plague, and physical struggle. Next, it is the story of...

Book Review / Books and Reading

Classics Club #16: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The house was a sepulcher, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins. There would be no resurrection. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is a masterpiece of suspense that should not be missed by anyone who loves atmospheric settings, classic mysteries, or gorgeous prose. Ranked as the 9th greatest mystery novel of all time by the Mystery Writers of America, Rebecca entrances the reader with its lyrical sentences as the story slowly unfolds, picks up speed, and then builds into a page-turning climax. I enjoyed every sentence of this haunting...

Book Review / Books and Reading

Classics Club #15: Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol reaffirmed one thing for me: I really don’t like classic satires. From Candide to Gulliver’s Travels to Zuleika Dobson, they hold very little interest for me. I’ve had a bit more success with modern satires like the Discworld novels of Terry Pratchett, but in general satire is not a genre I appreciate. Dead Souls is an episodic story in which the main character Chichikov travels to various Russian estates trying to purchase “dead souls.” It’s not as creepy as it sounds. Dead souls are peasants that...

Harvard Classic Books

Books and Reading

Classics Club Challenge Update: Year One

One year ago I marked my 50th birthday by joining the Classics Club Challenge. The goal of the challenge is to read fifty classic novels in five years, and after one year I’m ahead of the pace by three books. In the last twelve months I’ve read the following thirteen books: The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni (1842) The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson (1908) Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson (1908) The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (1927) Conan –...

Florence, Italy

Book Review / Books and Reading

Classics Club Book #13: Romola by George Eliot

Under every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of guilty wishes, whose unwholesome infecting life is cherished by the darkness. I chose to read Romola for the 2017 Back to the Classics Challenge as my “Classic set in a place you’d like to visit.” The story takes place in Florence, Italy, which is one of my bucket-list destinations. Written by George Eliot in 1863, Romola transports the reader to Florence in 1492, where the main characters rub elbows with Niccolo Machiavelli, Girolamo Savonarola, members of the Medici family,...

Ewan McGregor and Gwyneth Paltrow in Emma

Book Review / Books and Reading

Classics Club Book #12: Emma by Jane Austen

The last time I read Jane Austen’s Emma was long before I had seen the movie with Gwyneth Paltrow. Since then I’ve seen the movie maybe half a dozen times, as it’s become one of my girls’ favorites. Because I’ve seen it so many times, the movie has overshadowed the book in my memory. So as I picked up my Kindle to read the novel for my Classics Club Challenge I was curious about how different the two might be and how the movie would stand up next to the...

London Plague of 1665

Book Review / Books and Reading

A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

Many consciences were awakened; many hard hearts melted into tears; many a penitent confession was made of crimes long concealed. It would wound the soul of any Christian to have heard the dying groans of many a despairing creature, and none durst come near to comfort them. Many a robbery, many a murder, was then confessed aloud, and nobody surviving to record the accounts of it. When A Journal of the Plague Year was first published in 1722 as the “Observations and Memorials” of a “citizen” who called himself...