ARC, Books

Book 449: Whose Mind Is It Anyway? – Lisa and Franco Esile

Esile, Lisa and Frank - Whose Mind Is It Anyway?Sometimes you need to be reminded that you don’t know everything and this is one of those instances. It legitimately, is a book telling you not to always believe what you’re mind says, but to take time out and look at it from a different perspective (aka your heart) and to see what else is going on.

This isn’t one of those books I would pick up and buy for myself or even as a gift, but it’s one of those books that everyone would (or really should) read if they stumbled across it. I know if I saw it on a coffee table or in a bathroom (see photo of illustration below), I would flip through it. The publicist for the novel sent over a copy for me to check out* and it was a quick, fun and quirky read. I’m definitely going to have to check out the author’s website to see what other fun things they get up to.

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Books, The Classics Club

Book 390: The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

Plath, Sylvia - The Bell JarThis is one of those books that has so much umph in the cultural milieu that it’s a wonder I’ve never read it before. I squeezed it in just in time this month to get a podcast recorded to be released at the end of the month. If you’re in the Boston area and you want to record one let me know! 😀 But, more importantly than podcasting, this book counts as the 43 book of my Classics Club journey. (See, I told you I was still chipping away). I’m so far off target it’s not even funny, but I’m glad that I’m still occasionally reading from my list.

Let’s start with the big to-do about this novel. Maybe it’s not that much of a to-do, but it felt like one. I still don’t know how much of this novel to believe is fiction. It’s very clearly labeled as fiction and yet it is very clearly Plath’s own personal story. I mean her mom wrote a letter to the American publishers saying these are real people and real stories thinly veiled as characters! There is one point where I couldn’t help but laugh because Plath writes Esther, the main character, writing a novel about a character doing the same thing. HOW META CAN YOU GET?! This is the same story being told by three different people all of whom are telling/experiencing the same story.

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