bree Posted February 2, 2013 Author Share Posted February 2, 2013 7. Sula Toni Morrison First published: 1973Awards: None for the book, but Morrison is the 1992 Nobel-prize winner for LiteratureSetting: 1919 - 1965, in a Black neighbourhood in OhioSynopsis (from behind the book): This rich and moving novel traces the lives of two black heroines from their close knit childhood in a small Ohio town, through their sharply divergent paths of womanhood, to their ultimate confrontation and reconciliation. Nel Wright has chosen to stay in the place where she was born, to marry, raise a family, and become a pillar of the black community. Sula Peace has rejected the life Nel has embraced, escaping to college, and submerging herself in the city life. When she returns to her roots, it is as a rebel and a wanton seductress. Eventually, both women must face the consequences of their choices. Together they create an unforgettable portrait of what it means and costs to be a black woman in America. Thoughts: This one took a little time for me to get into. It started to pick up slowly, and I was completely into it after I was about half-way. The book explores the relationship between two women who grow up together - who are seemingly as different from each other as could be - against the background of the trials, emotions and ethics of a Black community. I deals with complexities of judging what is right, wrong, (and how relative those terms could be), with friendship, with individuality, with the truth about relationships, with the queerness and twistedness(?) of people who've been through more than should have... I'm not really expressing it well - and I don't I think I know really how to. It was a disturbing novel. A questioning one. Even depressing. And most certainly a bold and powerful one. It challenges - you dares - to try and pigeon-hole the characters - and will leave you to re-think about the injustice, (impossibility even) of labelling and judging others. Not so much because it is wrong to judge, but simply because there's so much to a person than can meet your eye - one is never only this OR only that. I completed reading it two night ago - and I thought then that "I liked it". It has grown on, in my mind, and I actually think "I love it" - and it is one I want to re-read. And I most definitely want to read Morrison's other novels. Rating: ★★★ : I loved it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bree Posted February 2, 2013 Author Share Posted February 2, 2013 (edited) January Reading Summary: Just trying to see I have fulfilled in January, what I'd planned for this year's reading (can you tell that I have a lot of time on my hands today? ) Books read : 7 (The Tenderness of Wolves, The Moonstone, I Capture The Castle, Lajja, The Upstairs Room, White Fang, Sula) Classics read : 1 (The Moonstone) Children/YA Classics read : 1 (White Fang) Newbury books read : 1 (The Upstairs Room) Books read from the 1001 Books List : 2 (The Moonstone, Sula) = 31/1001 Books read from the Ultimate Teen Guide : 2 (The Moonstone, I Capture The Castle) = 41/736 Books read from the 100 Books for Children List : 1 (I Capture The Castle) = 21/100 Reading Circle book read? : Yes : The Tenderness of Wolves Books bought : 19 Unread books on the shelf : 11 ★★★ books read : 2 (White Fang, Sula) ★★ books read : 4 (The Tenderness of Wolves, The Moonstone, I Capture The Castle, The Upstairs Room) ★ books read : 1 (Lajja) Edited February 7, 2013 by bree Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesilbeach Posted February 2, 2013 Share Posted February 2, 2013 Wow, what a fantastic summary, bree - it looks gorgeous! It sounds like a pretty good reading month to me too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylie Posted February 2, 2013 Share Posted February 2, 2013 Great summary, Bree, and very pretty! I love the effect around the book covers (part curved). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bree Posted February 2, 2013 Author Share Posted February 2, 2013 Wow, what a fantastic summary, bree - it looks gorgeous! It sounds like a pretty good reading month to me too. Great summary, Bree, and very pretty! I love the effect around the book covers (part curved). Thanks you two - it was a good reading month. Kylie, I just created a collage using this site Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
julie Posted February 2, 2013 Share Posted February 2, 2013 Very neat Bree I like how you laid out the books you read the past month,very neat idea . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 You do such a beautiful job of laying out your reviews bree (I would use your collage idea, but I only read two books in January and they would look pretty lonely ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian. Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Fantastic review of the month, especially with the mosaic. I may have to pinch the idea for myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bree Posted February 3, 2013 Author Share Posted February 3, 2013 Very neat Bree I like how you laid out the books you read the past month,very neat idea . Thank you julie - I love your new avatar! You do such a beautiful job of laying out your reviews bree (I would use your collage idea, but I only read two books in January and they would look pretty lonely ) How huge is A Game of Thrones poppy? Fantastic review of the month, especially with the mosaic. I may have to pinch the idea for myself. Go on Brian - I'd love to see all your gorgeous covers laid out together Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 Very nicely done Bree! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devi Posted February 3, 2013 Share Posted February 3, 2013 I loved your mosaic idea too! Very clever Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bree Posted February 4, 2013 Author Share Posted February 4, 2013 (edited) Very nicely done Bree! I loved your mosaic idea too! Very clever Thank you, you two Meanwhile, my unread-books-list has hit single numbers again. I ordered a few books today, as it may take a while getting here (it has begun to snow again with many roads being blocked). I certainly don't want to end up with no books to read once more! 1. The Black Tower - PD James 2. The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper 3. Villette - Charlotte Bronte 4. The Black Dahlia - James Ellroy 5, Beloved - Toni Morrison 6. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 7. The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay 8. Kafka On The Shore - Haruki Murakami 9. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 10. The Dangerous Liaisons - Choderlos de Laclos I am excited about all of them - and I hope they reach me before the month ends Edited February 4, 2013 by bree Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
julie Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 Bree Hope your books arrive quickly . nothing worse than being stranded with no books to read ! Sounds as if you chose some really good ones . Enjoy them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bree Posted February 4, 2013 Author Share Posted February 4, 2013 8. The Woman in Black Susan Hill First published: 1983Setting: "a small market town on the east coast of the United Kingdom"Synopsis (from behind the book):Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summoned to attend the funeral Mrs Alice Drablow, the sole inhabitant of Eel Marsh House, unaware of the tragic secrets which lie hidden behind the shuttered windows. The house stands at the end of a causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but it is not until he glimpses a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, at the funeral, that a creeping sense of unease begins to take hold, a feeling deepened by the reluctance of the locals to talk of the woman in black - and her terrible purpose.Thoughts:I picked this book up as I was curious to experiment how I react to horror literature. I had previously read The Shining (Stephen King) as a teenager - and it left me completely shaken - with images that haunted me for a long time. I've since then avoided all things horror. Anyway when I started on The Woman in Black, I read it almost detached so at to shield by self from getting sucked in the horror. So I ended up not really "enjoying" the book or liking it too much. Which in a way is a shame - as I could appreciate again in a detached way - the fine writing and the masterly way the author built the atmosphere. There were a couple of things I struggled with (copying from my reply in the Reading Circle thread)- I don't understand why all those people - the caretaker, the inn-keeper, the others in town - continued to live there in spite of knowing about the horror and its consequences. I was also was disturbed about the inclusion of the twist involving the death of children. It's disturbing enough when innocent people are killed - but doubly so when it is children. Rating: ★ - I didn't like it (which is really unfair because with me horror books are d*mned if they scare me, and d*mned if they don't - I should just not read anymore ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bree Posted February 4, 2013 Author Share Posted February 4, 2013 (edited) 9. The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros First published: 1991 Setting: ChicagoSynopsis (from behind the book):Told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence, The House on Mango Street is the story of Esperanza Condero, a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. For Esperanza, Mango Street is a desolate landscape of concrete and run-down tenements, where she discovers the hard realities of life - the fetters of class and gender, the specter of racial enmity, the mysteries of sexuality and more. Capturing her thoughts and emotions in poems and stories, Esperanza is able to rise above hopelessness, and create for herself "a house all my own... quiet as snow, a space for myself to go," in the midst of her oppressive surroundings.Thoughts: The book poured forth in evocative bursts - introducing the neighbourhood, its residents, and Esperenza's thoughts on all of them. It was interesting style, and the author's gift with words is hard to ignore. It is a short book just around a hundred pages, and each of vignette flowed out like poetry. A well-worded story about a young girl who wants to find herself and her place in the world, and once again I'm amazed at the magic and simplicity of YA literature. One of the vignettes from the book: My Name In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing. It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse--which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong. My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild, horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it. And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window. At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name Magdalena--which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least- -can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do. Rating: ★★ - I liked it Edited February 4, 2013 by bree Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bree Posted February 4, 2013 Author Share Posted February 4, 2013 (edited) Bree Hope your books arrive quickly . nothing worse than being stranded with no books to read ! Sounds as if you chose some really good ones . Enjoy them Thank you julie I was a bit blue in the beginning of the year with no books to read! Edited February 4, 2013 by bree Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted February 4, 2013 Share Posted February 4, 2013 9. The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros First published: 1991 Setting: "a small market town on the east coast of the United Kingdom" 9. I love the sound of this one! I hope you don't mind me mentioning, but I think you need to update the setting in your review. It's a shame you didn't like The Woman in Black. it's not a genre I read but I enjoyed it - but it would be dull if we all enjoyed the same things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bree Posted February 4, 2013 Author Share Posted February 4, 2013 (edited) 9. I hope you don't mind me mentioning, but I think you need to update the setting in your review. oops! Thanks Janet! Edited February 5, 2013 by bree Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bree Posted February 5, 2013 Author Share Posted February 5, 2013 10. The African QueenC.S. ForesterFirst published: 1935 Setting: Africa, during the First World War Synopsis (from behind the book):A crazy, breathless, steam-powered adventure of the First World War C.S. Forester is at his most entertaining in this story of the missionary woman and the Cockney mechanic marooned in German Central Africa. As they fight their ramshackle old launch downriver 'to strike a blow for England', the 'African Queen' seems to breathe the spirit of Hornblower himself.Thoughts:Rose Sayer and Charlie Allnut. The first is the uptight spinster English missionary, and the other is a "Cockney engineer working in mines". They are thrown together in a wild, dangerous, insect-filled, yet exhilarating journey through Africa, on a rickety launch : The African Queen. Why? Because Rose, rootless after losing her brother (a Reverend), wants to do her bit for her country and "strike a blow for England". And so begins the wild adventure. Bit by bit Rose throws of her inhibitions, and revels in challenges and dangers and truly blossoms to be the woman she was meant to be. And Allnut - never wanting to do anything more challenging than staying alive - finds himself doing things he'd never imagined possible (with plenty of "Coo!" s thrown in for good measure ) Hugely entertaining and sprinkled with humour. (My eyes did however glaze over some of the nautical descriptions!) I'm now looking forward to watching the film - I read plenty of reviews which said this was one instance where the film is much superior to the book. And I can imagine why - the action described in words must translate beautifully on video. Rating: ★★ : I liked it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted February 6, 2013 Share Posted February 6, 2013 I love books like this bree and am going to make a note of it. Nevil Shute wrote a lot of books based round WW2, which I really enjoyed and this sounds like it might be something similar. (great review as always ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bree Posted February 6, 2013 Author Share Posted February 6, 2013 (edited) Come to think of it, it does have some similarities with The Passage to the Godforsaken ! Edited February 6, 2013 by bree Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bree Posted February 6, 2013 Author Share Posted February 6, 2013 11. Girl With A Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier First published: 1999Awards: ALA Alex Award (2001), ALA's Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults (2001), Abraham Lincoln Award Nominee (2006) Setting: Netherlands , 1664 - 1676Synopsis (from Amazon):17th Century Holland. When Griet becomes a maid in the household of Johannes Vermeer in the town of Delft, she thinks she knows her role: housework, laundry and the care of his six children. But as she becomes part of his world and his work, their growing intimacy spreads tension and deception in the ordered household and, as the scandal seeps out, into the town beyond. Background (from wikipedia): Tracy Chevalier's inspiration for Girl with a Pearl Earring was a poster of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. She bought the poster as a nineteen-year-old, and it hung wherever she lived for sixteen years. Chevalier notes that the "ambiguous look" on the girl's face left the "most lasting impression" on her. She describes the girl's expression "to be a mass of contradictions: innocent yet experienced, joyous yet tearful, full of longing and yet full of loss." Thoughts: It was easy to engage with the book - narrated first hand by the intelligent and intriguing Griet. It starts when she's sixteen - hen she first joins as a maid in Vermeer's household, and chronicles her journey for the next three years. We get to know of own mind, and of each of the characters in the artist's home. And beneath all the labels of it being a "historic" novel, it is essentially a coming-of-age book - of a girl who at every step knows her mind, her heart and her passions. I think what gave the novel an edge was- there never is an overspill of the passion into a physical intimacy - so its power is in the fact that nothing did happen - despite the obvious attractions and connection between Vermeer and Griet. It however stopped short of being perfect for me as the book felt quite modern despite the historic premise. Also in a few places the author, I felt, used more flowery language than the narrative called for - which I'd have probably admired more reading as a young-adult. Rating: ★★ : I liked it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kidsmum Posted February 6, 2013 Share Posted February 6, 2013 Glad you enjoyed The Girl With the Pearl Earring Bree i read it awhile back & really enjoyed it . I agree with what you said in the spoiler as well I hadn't really thought about it like that but when i read your comment it made sense. Have you read any of her other books? I have The Lady & the Unicorn & Remarkable Creatures but haven't got round to reading them yet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesilbeach Posted February 6, 2013 Share Posted February 6, 2013 Good to hear that you enjoyed The Girl With The Pearl Earring bree. I've read most of Chevalier's novels now, and I think this is one of the better, although my favourite is Falling Angels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peacefield Posted February 6, 2013 Share Posted February 6, 2013 I too am so happy to see that you enjoyed Girl with the Pearl Earring, Bree! I've read almost all of her works as well and am reading Remarkable Creatures right now. Funnily enough, Chesil, Fallen Angels is the one other Chevalier I've not read so I obviously need to! The Lady and the Unicorn is my favorite, but GWTPE is not far behind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.