Tag: Penguin Books

Books

Book 346: Bridget Jones’s Diary (Bridget Jones #1) – Helen Fielding

Geoff W

Fielding, Helen - Bridget Jones's Diary (Bridget Jones #1)I picked up a copy of this and the sequel, Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason, back in January 2014 because they were like $2 each. I knew I wouldn’t read it right away, but what I didn’t know is that when I read it would take less than six hours, including a two-hour walk in the middle of it! I grabbed it to read as it was a quick read. I remembered hearing things around Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, the third book released last year so I figured why not now.

Let’s start with the film adaptation: I LOVED it. The cast was perfect and what they changed was for a reason. It worked as a stand-alone, but even as an adaptation I felt it worked well. That being said, this book was hilariously funny and if you enjoyed the film you should definitely check out the book.

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Books

Book 343: Year of Wonders – Geraldine Brooks

Geoff W

Brooks, Geraldine - Year of WondersI picked this novel up back in November 2012, and as is usually the case, I’m sad I didn’t read it sooner. I enjoyed Brooks’ March, but apparently not enough to buy and read the rest of her works immediately. Check out the synopsis here (Amazon link).

Zombies may be all the rage these days, but plague has been around and written about for so much longer. Zombies, according to Wikipedia at least, didn’t appear in popular culture until the 1800s, whereas plague has been a stark reality off-and-on since the 1300s.

Now imagine three hundred years after the Black Death ravaged Europe, you live in a small village with fewer than 500 people in central England. In less than a year more than 2/3 of the people were dead and you were one of the survivors to witness this and all of it is because of the plague. What would you do? How would you respond? Well this is that villages tale and the flashback to what happened in this “plague village,” and it is not the only one.

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Books

Book 329: A Jane Austen Education – William Deresiewicz

Geoff W

Deresiewicz, William - A Jane Austen EducationWarning: Goodreads rant – skip to second paragraph. I’m not sure what jumped up everyone’s butts on Goodreads (I shouldn’t really be surprised), but this book doesn’t deserve as much vitriol as it has received on the site. So many people trashed it without even finishing the book, many obviously had read the synopsis (Amazon Affiliate link) and yet were shocked at what they read.

The book definitely deserves a lot of the criticism, but it doesn’t deserve the pure vitriol that Goodread’s reviewers thew at it. Sure, I wanted to smack Deresiewicz for being an insufferable grad student, but it’s very clear in the synopsis that the book was going to be full of naval gazing. He made a couple of questionable sexist and classist comments and he may have reduced a lot of Austen’s genius down to basics, but it would definitely work for people who are not familiar with Austen. Seriously, if you can’t find the good in a book, why bother finishing and trashing it? Just move on to the next book.

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Books

Book 301: Chocolat (Chocolat #1) – Joanne Harris

Geoff W

Harris, Joanne - ChocolatThis book has been on my to-be-read shelf for so long it took quite a while to trace where and when I bought it! I apparently picked it up way back in October 2012 when I helped out at the Somerville Public Library book sale! I’m glad I grabbed a copy. I own a copy of the film, but for some reason I never realized they adapted it from a novel!

Add in that when random.org selected it as my next book and I prepared to read it I found out it was a trilogy, my mind was BLOWN! I was a little grumpy at first, because I had a plan worked out to read more of my to-be-read shelf and was trying really hard not to add more in between the books, but I do love a good trilogy! I plan to read two and three, The Girl With No Shadow and Peaches for Father Francis, in the next few weeks and am VERY excited about them!

Now on to the story and my response!

Books

Book 220: The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen – Syrie James

Geoff W

James, Syrie - The Missing Manuscript of Jane AustenWhat a fun novel! I am so glad I stumbled across this novel and I cannot wait to read more of Syrie James’ works. I can’t remember where I first read about it or why I thought I had to read it, but I checked it out of the library last month and have waited patiently to read it as I trekked through Les Misérables I once again, however, tricked myself into not knowing ANYTHING about the book and did not realize that James wrote a novel in a novel so that was pleasantly unexpected.

I think what I enjoyed most about this novel was the contrast between the missing manuscript The Stanhopes and the modern story of those who find the manuscript. The two novels were intertwined enough to make it interesting, but not so much to make it confusing (I’m looking at you Ms. Atwood! [Even though I still love you and The Blind Assassin was phenomenal]).

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