Tag: jane austen

Katherine Howe and Me

Re-Reading The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

Posted on by Dana

Katherine Howe and MeAfter my trip to Salem in July, I have been reading books set there, and I just finished a re-read of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. I found the book as enjoyable the second time as I did the first. I’d really like to read some more books set in Salem, but aside from The House of Seven Gables, I don’t have any on hand. I decided to go forward with the Everything Austen Challenge and read Syrie James’s The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen. I’m looking forward to reading her newest book, Dracula, My Love. Anyone reading that one?

My students seemed interested to hear about my trip to Salem. Many of them had read The Crucible last year, and they remembered the characters. I told them I had seen Judge Hathorne’s grave and all the memorials for each of the people who were executed. I think I’ll have a lot of fun teaching The Crucible this year.

I think I’ll try to start both The House of Seven Gables and The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen tonight.

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Guys Read

Struggling with Books

Emily Brontë

Sense and Sensibility

Posted on by Dana

Sense And SensibilityJane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility is the story of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood who, along with their younger sister Margaret, are children of their father’s second marriage. When their father dies, their older half-brother John and his wife Fanny decide not to provide for their younger sisters and step-mother, leaving them in much reduced circumstances. Fanny does everything in her power to make her husband’s family feel unwelcome, especially in light of Elinor’s attachment to Fanny Dashwood’s brother Edward Ferrars, which Fanny sees as an inappropriate match for her brother. The family removes to a cottage in Devonshire, where Marianne meets and falls in love with John Willoughby. The novel follows the romantic fortunes and misfortunes of Elinor and Marianne as they learn to strike a balance between sense and sensibility.

I first read this novel in 1998, during my first year as a high school teacher. It was refreshing to return to it again and discover I loved it as much as I remembered. I had completely forgotten Willoughby returns upon hearing of Marianne’s illness to confess he still loves Marianne to Elinor. I can’t remember if that scene was absent from both movies I’ve seen or just the most recent. I have always admired Elinor as the kind of person who puts others before herself and rolls up her sleeves to do what must be done. I wish I were more like her. To Marianne’s credit, she realizes her behavior is selfish and repents of it. Her essential romantic nature and love for music and books is what I admire about her.

I can’t tell if I like this book better than Pride and Prejudice or not. Elizabeth Bennet is a spunky, admirable character, and Mr. Darcy a worthy romantic hero. Yet, the Misses Dashwood certainly have their charms. I have thoroughly enjoyed my re-reads of both books this year.

Rating: ★★★★★

I re-read this novel for the Everything Austen Challenge. It is the second of six Austen-related activities I have planned. Others:

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Review: The Secret History of Twin Peaks, Mark Frost

Review: Sky in the Deep, Adrienne Young

Review: Conversion, Katherine Howe, narrated by Khristine Hvam

Mark Twain’s Unexpurgated Biography Published

Posted on by Dana

Mark Twain via the Library of CongressMuch speculation has surrounded Mark Twain’s autobiography because of the stipulation in his will that it not be published until 100 years after his death. Many have wondered exactly what he said that was so controversial. Readers won’t have to wait much longer. The New York Times reports that the first of three volumes is set to be published by the University of California Press this November. You can preorder it on Amazon right now. No word yet on when volumes 2 and 3, which are said to contain most of the previously unpublished material, will be published.

Are you going to try to read it?

Other book news this week:

Thursday, July 15 marks the 172nd anniversary of Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s famous Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School. Emerson declared Jesus to be a great man, but not divine, and he discounted biblical miracles in this famous address. The controversial speech resulted in Emerson’s not speaking at Harvard for 30 years. You can read the speech here.

Friday July 16 marks the 95th anniversary of the date when Henry James became a British citizen. I can only think of one other American writer—T. S. Eliot—who became a British citizen. Because James died less than a year after becoming a British citizen, most people don’t think of him as an English writer, whereas some people do think of Eliot as English. Can you think of other American writers who became British citizens?

July 16 also marks the 59th anniversary of the publication of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. This book continues to speak to students even today. You can read my reflections about teaching it here and here.

Mickey Spillane died four years ago on July 17.

On July 18, 1925, Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf. William Makepeace Thackeray was born on July 18, 1811. Jane Austen died on July 18, 1817. Horatio Alger also died on that date in 1899.

On July 19, 1692, five women—Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, Sarah Wildes, and Rebecca Nurse—were hanged for witchcraft in Salem, MA. (my visit to Salem begins on that date next week!) The Salem witch trials served as inspiration for Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, as well as one of my favorite YA writers Ann Rinaldi’s book A Break with Charity. Elizabeth Howe is an ancestor of modern writer Katherine Howe, who also used Salem’s witchcraft history as inspiration for her novel The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (read my review).

On July 19, 1963, Australian author Garth Nix was born. I enjoyed his book Sabriel. My daughter loves his writing.

Transcendentalist writer Margaret Fuller died on July 19, 1850. Irish-American writer Frank McCourt died a year ago on July 19, 2009.

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Reading Update: December 26, 2010

All Austen, All the Time

Saturday Reads: January 21, 2012

The Three Weissmanns of Westport

Posted on by Dana

The Three Weissmanns of Westport: A NovelCathleen Schine’s novel The Three Weissmanns of Westport is a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. I first became intrigued by the novel after I heard Lois Reitzes interview Schine on Between the Lines. Here is the interview:

Cathleen Schine, author of The Three Weissmans of Westport

Schine explains in the interview that her motivation for telling the tale lay in part in the fact that in many ways, women today are as vulnerable to the same financial difficulties as the Dashwoods because of divorce. It was an interesting take. The story begins as Betty Weissmann learns her husband nearly fifty years, Joseph, plans to leave her for a younger woman, the Fanny Dashwoodish Felicity. In an argument over the apartment the Weissmanns share in the Central Park West area in Manhattan, Betty finds herself cut off from the money she has never had to worry about in the past. Meanwhile, Betty’s two daughters have troubles of their own. Schine has recast the characters into older counterparts, and I found it worked well. Annie is the Elinor figure; a librarian with two grown sons, she pines for Felicity’s brother, the novelist Frederick Barrows. Miranda is the Marianne figure, a literary agent who peddles fake memoirs and is outed by Oprah. Cousin Lou, the Mr. Middleton figure, comes to the rescue and offers the Weissmanns his cottage in Westport because they’re “like family.” The three women move in together. Miranda falls in love with the dashing young actor Kit and his son Henry. Betty mourns the death of her marriage like a true widow. Annie wonders how she is going to pay all the bills.

One of the enjoyable aspects of reading derivative works like this—modern updates or retellings—is seeing how an old story can still speak to a modern audience and can still be as fresh and as true as it ever was. I particularly liked A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley’s retelling of King Lear for that reason. This retelling works. The situations were plausible, and the characters were flawed, but intriguing and funny and even charming enough to keep me interested. In this case, knowing Sense and Sensibility made me wonder how the author might, for instance, deal with Willoughby’s betrayal or Elinor’s introduction to Lucy Steele. It was satisfying to turn the page, then, and see it coming. For instance, as soon as Amber and Crystal walked on the scene, I thought “here come the Misses Steele.” Schine captured those two particularly well. The book has a lot of pop culture references, from James Frey, to Shamwow, to Snuggies, and more, but I wonder if these problems won’t date the book in the future. Then again, maybe it will be a snapshot of the early 21st century. Austen purists won’t like some of the changes made to the ending. I think the ending Sense and Sensibility of is one of the best endings ever. However, I liked the ending of this book. Around about the middle, I had to keep plowing through the book to see how Schine would modernize next.

Rating: ★★★★☆

This is my first book for the Everything Austen Challenge.

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Well Read. tee-shirt on sale at the Decatur Book Festival, September 2009

Reading Update: July 1, 2010

Posted on by Dana

Well Read. tee-shirt on sale at the Decatur Book Festival, September 2009I am in the midst of reading three books at the moment: Gulliver’s Travels via DailyLit, The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox (paperback), and The Three Weissmanns of Westport (Kindle).

As of today, I have read 80 of 115 sections via email of Gulliver’s Travels. My verdict so far: I am ready to be finished with it. My favorite part has been Gulliver’s stay in Brobdingnag, which might change before I finish the book. As I read, I find myself annoyed with Gulliver for repeatedly abandoning his family on what look like frivolous voyages to me. If I were his wife, I’d have divorced him.

The Meaning of Night is taking me some time to get into. I’m currently on p. 244 out of about 700. I am being patient because my husband says it’s really good, but it hasn’t grabbed my interest yet. My husband keeps saying it will, and he rarely gushes about books. I don’t think I can give the book too much longer or I will have given it too much for too little return. It does have a good atmosphere, and the author captures Victorian England well.

The Three Weissmanns of Westport is indeed Sense and Sensibility set in modern Westport, CT and New York. I like it so far. It’s full of modern pop culture references (Gawker, Oprah, subtle shades of James Frey). I’m not sure how well it will stand the test of time as a result. I think the author does more telling rather than showing, but I’m entertained and intrigued enough to finish. I’m 41% finished with it. I’m reading it for the Everything Austen Challenge.

What are you reading? What do you think of it?

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Everything Austen Challenge

Everything Austen Challenge II

Posted on by Dana

Everything Austen ChallengeJust as the  All About the Brontës Challenge is ending, I am embarking on a new reading challenge: the Everything Austen Challenge. Regular readers know I love Jane Austen, and I’m looking forward to completing this challenge. In order to complete the challenge, which runs from July 1, 2010 to January 1, 2011, readers must choose six Austen-themed things to complete for the challenge—books, movies, and even crafts count.

The six things I have chosen are the following:

I will blog reviews of each of these Austen-related items, even though I don’t usually blog movie reviews.

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2010: A Reading Year in Review

Remarkable Creatures

Posted on by Dana

Remarkable CreaturesWhen I was a little girl, I loved dinosaurs. It might be I don’t remember things correctly, but I don’t remember dinosaurs being all that cool when I was a kid. Mrs. Jones taught us about the Trachodon in first grade, the first day of our unit on dinosaurs. I was hooked. The first “chapter” book I ever read was called Prehistoric Monsters Did the Strangest Things. As an accurate dinosaur book, it probably wasn’t very good, but I was fascinated by it. The book was part of a series on animals. I remember clearly that the chapter about Mary Anning’s discovery was titled “What Mary Found.” She wore a pink dress and a white mob cap over her blond curls. I was entranced by the idea of finding a real fossil, just like Mary Anning. Many years later, I still remember much of what I learned, and while my fascination with dinosaurs waned with time, I couldn’t resist picking up a novel about Mary Anning.

Remarkable Creatures is the story of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, women who paved the way for a great deal of scientific discovery in an age when women weren’t even allowed to join the scientific societies that celebrated their discoveries. Mary and Elizabeth come from two very different classes: Mary’s family is poor, working class, while Elizabeth is solidly middle class. Theirs is an unlikely friendship established over their shared fascination with fossils of the remarkable creatures they find on the beach at Lyme Regis. The novel explores their complicated relationship with each other and with the men of science who take credit for their discoveries.

Chevalier brought the setting of Lyme Regis alive, the beaches teeming with fossil ammonites and belemnites. The reader can feel the sea spray and the hard rock holding the fossils fast until they are released by Mary’s skilled hands. Her attention to detail is precise. I could see the layout of Morley Cottage, where the three Philpot sisters lived as well as if I had been there. If you’ve read Girl with a Pearl Earring or Chevalier’s other books, you know she’s a thorough researcher. Chevalier managed to bring these fossil hunters alive for me—they are my kindred spirits. Some of the male characters seem to run together, and I found them hard to distinguish from one another and perhaps not as fully realized, but I think that was most likely Chevalier’s aim.

I am not sure this book qualifies for the Typically British Challenge, as Chevalier is an American living in England and writing about England, but not an English writer herself, so I’ve elected not to count it. I am, however, tagging the post with my Jane Austen tag because the book mentions her and her visit to Lyme Regis as well as Persuasion, which is set there.

Rating: ★★★★★

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The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë

R.I.P. Update

Summer Reading

Posted on by Dana

Summer is rapidly approaching. I have one more week of teaching, one more week of finals, and a couple of days of post-planning, after which my teaching responsibilities for 2009-2010 will have ended. Of course, before you tell me how lucky I am to have two months off (it’s not actually three), don’t forget I am actually not paid for that time. Most teachers are paid for ten months, but have their pay divided among twelve. Also, no teacher—let me rephrase that—no good teacher I know really takes that time off. Most of us usually spend that time planning for the next year, doing professional reading, and taking professional development courses or college courses. I’ll be doing all three. However, more time will also mean more time for reading. Here are the books on my radar (subject to change) for summer reading.

The Story of BritainThe Adventure of English: The Biography of a LanguageMedieval Lives

Rebecca Fraser’s The Story of England and Melvyn Bragg’s The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language are on tap as I plan my British Literature and Composition courses. I have also checked out the DVD companion for Bragg’s book from my school library. Both books should help me plan my courses. Terry Jones’s Medieval Lives should add some dimension to studies of Chaucer next year.

In terms of professional reading, I plan to finish some books I’ve started, specifically:

Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It The Grammar Plan Book: A Guide to Smart Teaching

Even if I am not teaching 9th grade next year, which is the grade level at which our grammar instruction is focused, I still think a solid foundation in how to teach grammar in a way that will stick and will make a difference in student writing is a good idea. In addition, I would like to try to read this book:

Plagiarism

In this day of easy cut and paste, plagiarism is much easier, and I believe, more tempting than ever before.

Finally, for pleasure reading, I plan to select from the following:

I thoroughly enjoyed Syrie James’s second novel, The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë, and as a fan of Jane Austen, I look forward to The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen. I originally purchased both The Forgotten Garden and The Meaning of Night for potential reading for the last R.I.P. Reading Challenge. My husband is thoroughly enjoying The Meaning of Night, and he highly recommends it.

These first two books will indulge my interest in the Romantic poets. The first book, Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land, explores the story of Byron’s own contribution to the famous writing challenge that produced Frankenstein and the first vampire novel. Passion: A Novel of the Romantic Poets explores the lives of Byron, the Shelleys, and Keats. As a child, I was extremely interested in dinosaurs and paleontology. Of course I want to read Remarkable Creatures, the first novel I know of written about Mary Anning, who discovered the fossil of an ichthyosaur and two plesiosaurs near her home at Lyme Regis.

The Little Stranger comes highly recommended from our art teacher. Emily’s Ghost promises to be an interesting novel about Emily Brontë: most of the novels about the Brontës either focus on Charlotte or broaden the focus on the Brontës in general. The Dream of Perpetual Motion will be my first steampunk novel.

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Multiple Copies

Posted on by Dana

Emma’s recent comment on my review of The Annotated Pride and Prejudice inspired this post. I don’t own multiple copies of many books, but I do own multiple copies of a few. Perhaps it is telling in terms of my literary interests?

I own two copies of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-TimeThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The image on the left is the US cover of the novel, and the reason I have a copy of that edition is that I use it to teach the novel. The image on the right, which is my favorite of the two, is the UK edition, which my friend Roger sent me.

I have three editions of Wuthering Heights. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite book, but it might be Wuthering Heights. Certainly it’s safe to say it’s one of my favorites based on the number of copies I own.

Wuthering Heights, Norton Critical EditionWuthering Heights, Barnes and Noble Classics SeriesWuthering Heights audiobook

I have the Norton Critical Edition for teaching. It includes a variety of lit. crit. articles and reviews. I think it might be most appropriate for college studies, but I use it with my high school students, too. I am not a fan of the Norton typeface, and neither are my students. I especially like Emily Brontë’s diary, which is included in this text. The edition to its right is the Barnes and Noble classics series edition. I love the pink cover and the beautiful image on the cover (Weymouth Bay by John Constable). This edition is the first one I read. It is directed at high school students, I think, and it has really good footnotes, a list of famous quotations from the novel (with page references),  Charlotte Brontë’s preface to the 1850 edition, an introduction by Daphne Merkin and notes on the Yorkshire dialect by Tatiana M. Holway, and a good family tree in the front. For some inexplicable reason, the Norton edition, which throws in everything but the kitchen sink, does not have a family tree. I don’t know how to keep track of the characters in Wuthering Heights without a family tree. The third edition I own is the audiobook as narrated by Janet McTeer and David Timson. Janet McTeer has actually played Nelly Dean before. Both actors do a masterful job with the text, McTeer of course reading the parts narrated by Nelly Dean, and Timson the parts narrated by Lockwood. I have every intention of buying an edition for my Kindle (I am just settling on the right one). *Yes, I bought a Kindle after doing the research on Kindles, Nooks, and iPads, and I will post about it, soon.* I also really want a paper copy of this edition because I’m in love with the cover:

Wuthering Heights Penguin Edition

Here is the full image, front and back:

Ruben Toledo Wuthering Heights cover

Click on the image to see a larger version. Gorgeous, right?

I also own two editions of Pride and Prejudice: the annotated edition Emma described as her favorite (mine, too), and the Bantam Classics edition, which was the first edition I read.

The Annotated Pride and PrejudicePride and Prejudice, Bantam Classics

The cover of The Annotated Pride and Prejudice is actually a drawing of Austen’s niece, Fanny Knight. Bantam‘s cover painting is Miss Rosamond Croker by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

There was a time when I didn’t mind mass market paperbacks at all. Over the last few years, I have decided I don’t like them much, and I don’t know whether to attribute it to older age and failing eyesight or the fact that mass markets crowd too many words on the page, too closely together, which just doesn’t make for as pleasant a reading experience as a trade paperback or hardcover. For a mass market, the BN edition of Wuthering Heights is pretty nice, and the words aren’t too crowded, but the Bantam edition of P&P—well, the Bantam edition of anything, really—seems more crowded. I actually stopped reading my Bantam edition of Persuasion because it was too hard on my eyes and took up reading the book on Stanza on my iPhone.

I have two editions of Persuasion, too. The Bantam edition I just mentioned and an audiobook version I won from Austenprose. I haven’t listened to the audiobook yet, but I am excited to do so. I’m not sure whether Persuasion or Sense and Sensibility is my second favorite Austen novel. Maybe they’re tied. Nah. Sense and Sensibility is second. But I do love Persuasion, and I especially love Captain Wentworth’s letter. I deleted Persuasion from my iPhone after I finished it to save space. I wouldn’t necessarily do that on my Kindle because I only intend to have books on the Kindle, but my iPhone has all my music and tons of other apps, too.

The only other books I own multiple copies of are the Harry Potter series. I have multiple copies of these books for several reasons:

  1. I have read some of them so many times I literally wore them out and had to replace them.
  2. We couldn’t share books when they were first released because we all wanted to read them (we have multiple copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).
  3. I really wanted the tenth anniversary edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I have to say the paper feels very nice, and the cover is gorgeous.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Which books do you own multiple copies of and why? Please share in the comments.

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Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Naval Treaty, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Reading Update: December 26, 2010

Pride and Prejudice

Posted on by Dana

Pride and PrejudiceI first read Pride and Prejudice during my first year teaching (which was 1997-1998, and I know it was 1998 when I read the novel). I fell in love with Jane Austen that year. Despite my affection for Ms. Austen, I had not re-read any of her novels, though I have watched adaptations in film. I decided I was overdue for a re-read of Pride and Prejudice, and this annotated version of the novel appealed to the scholar in me. I had hoped to learn some new interesting things or gain new insights from the David Shapard’s annotations, and I was not disappointed.

In some cases, the annotations were repetitive (for example, for each reference to “town,” Shapard reminds the reader that “town” refers to London). However, learning the differences between the different types of carriages, gaining insight into the conventions of the day, and so much more that I can’t possibly list it all here really enhanced my enjoyment of the book. I am currently listening to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and I find that the annotations in Pride and Prejudice have enhanced my enjoyment of that novel, too—after all, it owes a great deal to Jane Austen. A sojourn in Jane Austen’s novels is always rewarding, and I wonder if it’s possible to feel homesick for a place you’ve never even been except in books.

If you haven’t seen the new blog Following Jane, you might want to check it out. It’s interesting to read the perspectives of man dedicating himself to reading all of Jane Austen’s novels and blogging about his experiences. In a recent post written before he started Northanger Abbey, his first selection, he mentioned he was anxious to finish the book he had been reading at the time so that he could start reading Austen. I know that feeling. As I reach the end of the book, my thoughts are turning toward my next read, which will be A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro. All the talk about Shapiro’s new book, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?, has inspired quite a lot of quick reviews of A Year in the Life, which I have on my shelf and haven’t read. Austen and Shakespeare, my two favorite authors. How I’d love to sit down and have tea with them both.

Typically British Challenge

Pride and Prejudice is my fourth selection for the Typically British Challenge, and concludes the “Gordon Bennett” level of four novels that I committed to read. I may read other British authors over the course of the year (the challenge expires on December 31), but I can claim for the first time ever that I actually finished a reading challenge.

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Splintered, A. G. Howard

Free Audio Book: Persuasion

The New Classics