Tag: Southern

2013 Challenges, Books

Book 214: To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Geoff W

Lee, Harper - To Kill A MockingbirdWhat a great re-read. This was required reading in high school and I remember reading it, but I had little-to-no recollection of the story other than the major plot points. This re-read counts for my Back to the Classics, a bonus for my Mount TBR and The Classics Club reading challenges.

Before you read my review read the To Kill A Mockingbird review in the list of 19 Depressing One Star Reviews of Classic Literature and then once the shock has fully settled in you can come back and read my review.

As bad as the review is, it’s not necessarily wrong in many aspects; this novel is a very specific and very short novel, but I would not go anywhere near so far as the person who wrote the review. I can easily see where someone would not be impressed with the book for its slow pace, but that’s what I love about it. Lee sets the setting, and thus the book, up perfectly:

“People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A Day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County.” (5)

So you can’t say you weren’t warned, I mean come on its page FIVE. However, where I disagree is the characters and their one dimension-ness according to the reviewer.

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ARC, Books

Book 198: The Waiting Tree – Lindsay Moynihan

Geoff W

Moynihan, Lindsay - The Waiting TreeI’m never sure whether I should research an author or book too much before I start reading, especially if it is an advanced copy. On one hand I wouldn’t mind knowing where this novel fits within their repertoire (is it a first, a tenth, a hundredth?) or are they a writer by training? And on the other hand do I really want to have those pre conceived notions? Sometimes that really works well for an author.

If I’m reading a novel that I’m not sure is a first novel or not and I read it with no pre-conceived notions and then I go back and find out that it is a first novel it often makes me reflect on it differently and that is the case with The Waiting Tree. I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and received no compensation for my honest response.

This is Moynihan’s first novel and it was a good novel; it wasn’t great, but it bordered on great which is all you can really ask for in a first novel. I vaguely remember it saying this was her first novel, but there were times where the maturity of her writing made me think this couldn’t be her first novel, but there were a few occasions which made me think it could be her first novel.

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2013 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 197: Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories – Truman Capote

Geoff W

Capote, Truman - Breakfast at Tiffany'sYay for another book that counts for multiple challenges (Mount TBR, Back to the Classics and The Classics Club)! (It’s a doozy, sorry for the length!)

Ever since I read In Cold Blood and Other Voices, Other Rooms, I’ve wanted to read more Capote, but I haven’t. Throw in the fact that Breakfast at Tiffany’s has such an iconic place in popular culture, I had to read it at some point. Now I just need to see the film.

I didn’t realize this when I bought this copy, but it contained the novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and three short stories: House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar, and A Christmas Memory. So for my response I’ve just written a paragraph about each under a subtitle and you can see the opening/closing lines of each at the end of the post and my recommendation is for this collection as a whole.

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Meme, The Classics Club

The Classics Club – April 2013 Meme

Geoff W

For April the hosts of The Classics Club have asked “Who is hands-down the best literary hero, in your opinion? Likewise, who is the best heroine?” And although I have major issues with the separation of hero and heroine, there is no need to separate the two into gender based categories or if you’re going to separate them make a point and call it a ‘shero’, my answer is below.

I really wanted to write about Bone Cartwright from Bastard Out of Carolina, and I guess I could write about her, but I tend to restrict the monthly memes to this specific reading list. If not there’s no telling who I’d write about, so I’ll go for another character with a story similar to Bone’s. Although hero isn’t the first word to come to mind she is one. Wikipedia has a great line which sums up her existence:

In modern movies, the hero is often simply an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances, who, despite the odds being stacked against him or her, typically prevails in the end.

I’m choosing to equate the word hero/heroine with the word survivor. From the moment of Celie’s introduction in Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Color Purple, as she is being viciously raped, the reader is aware her story and her life will be a struggle for survival and existence.

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2012 Challenges, Books, Quotes, Reading Events

Book 147: Other Voices, Other Rooms – Truman Capote

Geoff W

After putting this book off for more than a month so that it would fit within The Literary Others reading event and after it sat on my shelf since I purchased it from the 2011 Boston Book Festival I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. I’m not really sure if it was worth the build up to keep putting it off, but it was an interesting read. In addition to being a part of The Literary Others Event it also counts towards my Mount TBR Reading Challenge (23/25)!

This is only the second Capote work I’ve read and it was very different compared to In Cold Blood, which I read before I started this blog. Other Voices, Other Rooms is Capote’s first published novel and is semi-autobiographical. You can definitely see the personal influence from the effeminate young boy to the faded rich southern decadence you catch glimpses of throughout.

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