Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Down the Garden Path



Finished Down the Garden Path by Beverley Nichols. This book is wickedly funny and best suited to those who know their way around a garden. Read it outside, in the sunshine or twilight, with a glass of something bubbly.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland



Finished re-reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. This is perhaps the fourth or fifth time I have read the book. The Anglophiles Anonymous group I belong to on Shelfari finally decided to read some children's lit and chose both of the Alice books.

This time around I read all the annotations in the edition I have. The type is so tiny and made me so sleepy that it took perhaps longer than it should have for me to finish the first book.

I have always enjoyed Tenniel's illustrations.

With this reading I was struck by Alice's concern for good manners. While constantly finding herself in absurd situations she still does not wish to offered anyone. Also, characters who I found intimidating or even frightening when I was younger now appear harmless and I feel they are looked upon with an indulgent eye, not only by me, but by Alice herself.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

How Green Was My Valley



There is a lovely book it is. A lovely, lovely book.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Main Street



Finished Main Street by Sinclair Lewis back in mid July but forgot to blog about it here. It is the story of Carol Kennicott, married to a country doctor, after living life as an independent young woman in Minneapolis. Gopher Prairie, MN is a small, close, terribly judgmental place and Carol tries her hardest to reform it visually and socially. Her struggle in this effort is at first valiant, but in the end a bitterly lost cause. I felt despair and disappointment for Carol as she was forever buried under the petty norms of small town America in the 1920s.

Despite this bleak prospect I enjoyed the novel. Lewis' characters are so real it's easy to get caught up in their lives.