Tag: LIterature

Books

Book 792: Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker

Geoff W

I forgot how beautiful this novel is. That’s not surprising considering it’s been over a decade since I read it and I’m honestly not sure if this is my original copy or if I picked up a new one in the past few years. [Can now confirm this is my original – I brought it to Boston in December 2012.]

I remember when I first read this. I had spent a semester studying the history of sexuality in America and we read many passages from Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality and I was obsessed. Between it and the other readings we read that term, a whole new world around sexuality, gender identity, and philosophy had opened up to me. So, more than likely I typed Foucault into Amazon and this came up and I purchased it.

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Books

Book 788: Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell #1) – Hilary Mantel

Geoff W

I clearly was not in a hurry to read this one. It has been on my Kindle since I purchased it in December of 2011 and that was TWO years after it won the Booker Prize! I avoided it for some time because I was waiting for the remaining two books: Bring Up the Bodies (2012) and The Mirror and the Light (2020), but I also avoided it because it’s a freakin’ tome. It comes it at just under 560 pages.* Thankfully the next one is shorter (436), but the last is 200 pages more coming in at 764 pages! OOF that is going to be a commitment when I get around to it.

I also actively avoided it because that was around the time that I came to realize that in general I find myself enjoying the runners up to the Booker Prize more often than the actual winner. There’s like a mental hurdle I don’t think I can quite make the leap over to fully appreciate and see the beauty in most of the winners. I knew this was long and I knew that it had A LOT of description and the formatting was weird (minimal quotation marks, the point of view), so I knew it would be a big challenge for me.

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Books

Book 634: The Mother of the Brontës – Sharon Wright

Geoff W

I somehow managed to read a biography of Maria Branwell Brontë prior to reading a biography of any of her offspring. I’m not sure why, but when I saw this one on NetGalley it just spoke to me.*

Maybe it’s because I finally got to visit The Brontë Parsonage last year, or maybe I some how knew that Kirkstall Abbey (which I visited over a decade ago while living in Leeds) was connected to the Brontës without really knowing it. Or maybe, like Wright, I was appalled that I spent a considerable amount of time less than 60 miles from their home. Or maybe it was just another opportunity to revisit God’s Own Country via this book which Wright references. Who knows?

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Books

Book 585: Abridged Classics – John Atkinson

Geoff W

I’m going to keep this review super short, since every 1-2 pages represents a classic that is hundreds of pages long! Who am I to write a super wordy review of a hilarious take on so many classics?

Not only are the abridged classics hilarious, but the illustrations included with each are so incredibly perfect I laughed out loud multiple times while reading this. Atkinson covered all my favorites including Austen and the Brontës, and he covered many I’m less interested in (and/or openly despise) like Dickens, Faulkner, Kafka, and Proust.

Recommendation: READ IT. It takes maybe 10 minutes to breeze through the entire work. Each one is a little more humorous than others and some are as puzzling as the original works when you read them. Thanks Caro and Nick for the perfect present!

ARC, Books

Book 560: Camp Austen – Ted Scheinman

Geoff W

I reached out to the publisher for a copy of this book when I saw the author, Ted Scheinman, was going to be in Boston giving a talk at the BPL.* Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it as it was the same day we moved houses (in a snow storm no less), but if you’re on the west coast, he’ll be talking about this at Skylight Books in LA this Saturday, July 21! (Skylight Books LA website)

I’m torn about my review. I’m wondering if I had the opportunity to hear him speak about the book and his experience, if my response would be different. I read his interview with the Jane Austen Summer program, but there are things you can only tell when you listen and watch someone interact with others.

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