Tag: Marriage

Books

Book 1,053: Hotel du Lac – Anita Brookner

Geoff W

What an interesting novel. I had no idea what to expect going into this. I knew it was famous, I knew it was Brookner’s most famous novel and I knew it won the year I was born. That’s about it.

I picked it up almost a decade ago because I knew it was a Booker Prize winner and at the time I had intentions of reading the full list. And, while I still may read the full list, there are no pressures or time constraints. That being said I’m starting to pare down my physical book collection and I’m sure I’ll be reading more and more as I have plenty physical books.

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Books

Book 684: Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton

Geoff W

Similar to my reading of The Age of Innocence two years ago, I was pleasantly surprised by my reading of this. I read it in high school, but of course was not impressed and definitely didn’t enjoy it, but now almost 20 years later, I get it. I’m going to keep slowly working through all the books I read in high school.

Not only was I able to appreciate the beautiful prose and stark setting thanks to living in Massachusetts now, I was also able to make connections from this to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, a connection I made last time I read Wharton too! The biggest parallel of the two works was the structure of the novel, a visiting traveler/worker has an interaction of some type with the protagonists and then gets the rest of the story from the locals. It’s all third party he said she said with some basic observations, and it works.

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ARC, Books

Book 658: The Children of Harvey Milk – Andrew Reynolds

Geoff W

I’m not sure how I stumbled across this one, but when I did back in May I requested a copy from the publisher and they kindly obliged.* I was interested because of the subject matter, but also because Reynolds is based at UNC Chapel Hill (my undergrad) and his name rang a bell because he’d chaired the Sexuality Studies program there at some point in the recent past. And then with my master’s degree focusing on the Civil Partnership Act (2014) in the UK, of course I was going to want to read this book and see what he had to say.

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Books

Book 642: Evvie Drake Starts Over – Linda Holmes

Geoff W

I discovered Linda Holmes years ago when I started listening to NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour and reading what used to be called Monkey See but was re-branded recently to match the podcast. I’ve always appreciated her views and the people she brings to the discussion, so when she started to drop hints that she was working on a novel I was SUPER excited.

I was also psyched to see the public radio shout out so early in the book, “She took down one of two public-radio fundraising mugs from the cabinet, leaving behind the one with the thin coat of dust on its upturned bottom.” (10). There’s another scene when Evvie is trying to decide what to do with some money and the list of charities she wants to support is just perfect.

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Books

Book 641: Unmarriageable – Soniah Kamal

Geoff W

Now this is how you do a modernization of a Jane Austen novel! I totally get why this one has received so much hype recently. I found it on a list of adaptations to look out for at some point last year and I finally got to read it after months on the library wait list.

Unlike what I wrote way back in 2011 about Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and the adaptations needing to be moved away from the main story, Unmarriageable stays very very close to the original (with a few slight modifications). Where else could a modern day almost exact retelling of Pride and Prejudice than a parallel situations when it comes to women and marriage? Continue reading “Book 641: Unmarriageable – Soniah Kamal” →