Books Please Review: The Broke and the Bookish started Top Ten Tuesday, which is now sponsored by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. See her blog for the guidelines. Books with Character Names in the Titles is this week’s topic. Hilary Mantel’s The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher and Other Stories – This collection of stories is moody, melancholy, dark, frightening, and full of razor-sharp and piercing observations — superb!
Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In telling his story, Stoker drew on a number of sources, including folklore, myths and legends, and historical truths, all of which he mixed with his own inventions. I had a lot more fun with this than I anticipated. Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome is a brilliantly recounted story about a tragedy that is hinted at right from the start of the book when the anonymous narrator first sees Ethan Frome and learns that he had been scarred and paralyzed in a mash’ twenty-four years before. Beryl Bainbridge’s Harriet Said is a terrible story that flips child abuse on its head. Beginning with Harriet and her companion, an unknown 13-year-old girl, running home screaming to tell their parents what had happened, the tale is unnerving and chilling.
Charles Dickens’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood – Drood has vanished and is nowhere to be found. The riddle has yet to be solved. What became of Edwin Drood? Was he murdered, and if so, was it by his uncle, John Jasper, who was enamored with Rosa? We’ll never know for sure. Jo Nesbo’s Macbeth is a tragedy, like Shakespeare’s, about political ambition and the destructive force it wields, love and guilt, and massive greed of all kinds. I was really intrigued by it, and I adored it. Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist This book is chock-full of fantastic descriptions of the state of society at the period, including the dreadful living conditions of the impoverished, terrible disclosures about what went on in the workhouse, and depictions of the criminal underworld — the juxtaposition of good and evil. It was shocking, intriguing, and moving to me.
About Rebecca Novel
Rebecca is a novel written by Daphne du Maurier. I’ve read it several times and each time I’m enthralled by it. Rebecca’s identity is a recurring issue; who was she, what was she like, and what led to her death? It’s a novel in which secrets are only just being kept hidden, like a ticking bomb poised to detonate and disclose the shocking truth.
George Eliot’s Silas Marner Silas Marner is a weaver who lives in Raveloe, a community on the verge of becoming industrialized. He was falsely accused of theft and fled to Raveloe, where he lived a lonely and unhappy life like a miser, keeping his wealth and calculating it each night. It has a fairytale or folk myth feel to it, and it teaches about the consequences of our deeds. Louise Welsh’s Tamburlaine Must Die is a suspenseful, dramatic account of Christopher Marlowe’s final days as a playwright, poet, and spy. His death is a mystery, however, conjecture and stories abound. He was accused of heresy and atheism, and his death is a mystery.
Description of the book:
After his cousin’s untimely death from leukemia, a little boy gets enamored with her doll in the title story. As he gets older, he starts collecting “found dolls” from the surrounding neighborhoods and storing them in the family’s abandoned carriage house. But what kind of dolls are they, exactly? A teenage girl is overjoyed when her favorite instructor invites her to house-sit, even on short notice, in “Gun Accident.” When an intruder breaks into the house while the girl is inside, the lives of several people are permanently affected.
Christa’s father was one among the people Fleur rescued, but he was a broken man when he returned home. As a result, when Estelle shows up on Christa’s doorstep, desperate for answers about her mother, a deep and complicated friendship blossoms. In 1939, as Europe is once again engulfed in conflict, Estelle follows her mother’s path. Then Christa learns that Fleur was deceived by a close friend, and the truth threatens to kill them all…
February 2022, according to library books
They are, in order, from top to bottom: John Le Carré’s A Legacy of Spies It’s the ninth installment in the George Smiley series. I’m not sure if I want to read this one yet because I’ve only read the first two books in the series: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. But, because it was on the shelf, I decided to borrow it and at the very least start reading it to see if it reads as a standalone. All five novels in the Smiley series, according to this article on the Penguin website, can be read alone. You don’t have to read them in that order, but they certainly recommend one.
When a letter summoning him to London arrives, Peter Guillam, a former follower of George Smiley in the British Secret Service, has long retired to Brittany. What is the explanation for this? The ghosts of the Cold War have returned to haunt him. Intelligence operations that were once the talk of the Service will be analyzed by a generation that has no recollection of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Someone has to pay for the innocent blood that has been spilled in the name of the greater good… Joyce Carol Oates’ The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror I’m not sure I want to read this book, which is touted as “six horrifying tales that chill the blood” on the back cover. They might be too frightening! But, since I’ve previously enjoyed her works, I’m hoping this one will be okay.
In “Equatorial,” set in the exotic Galapagos Islands, an affluent American wife is confronted with bewildering assaults on her understanding of who her charming husband is and what his aspirations for her might be. Katharine McMahon’s The Hour of Imagination I borrowed this because I’ve read and appreciated two of her books. Estelle never had a close relationship with her mother, Fleur, but she is plagued by her memory. She was a legendary World War I resistance heroine who assisted Allied soldiers in fleeing Belgium — and she was not alone in paying a horrible price.
Charlie Walden accepts the position as Resident Judge
When Charlie Walden accepts the position as Resident Judge at the Bermondsey Crown Court, he expects a more peaceful life. But he quickly finds himself trying to preserve the peace amongst three fiery other judges, all of whom have strong opinions about how they should do their jobs and how Charlie should do his. As if that weren’t enough, there’s also the never-ending war against the “Grey Smoothies,” a group of stoic grey-suited government employees who appear hell-bent on drowning Charlie in paperwork and robbing the court of its last vestiges of civility.
There’s no hope for Charlie then, and there are times when his true work — trying the difficult criminal cases that come before him – feels like a breath of fresh air. I’d want to hear your thoughts — have you read any of these books, and if so, how did you like them? Do they tempt you if they don’t?
Tangerine by Christine Mangan is the first book in the Friday 56 series: Gillion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Friday every Friday, where you can post the first line (or so) of the book you’re reading, as well as your initial thoughts on the sentence, impressions of the book, or whatever else the opener inspires. Tangerine by Christine Mangan is featured this week. I bought this book a few years ago because of its cover, which is something I rarely do, but it caught my eye on the bookshop’s display table. Since then, I’ve seen a wide range of reactions, with some harshly criticizing it and others lavishing love on it. I’m not sure what I’ll think of it; the blurb makes it sound like a novel I’d enjoy. Please let me know what you thought if you’ve read it.
Finish your evaluation: Sum up some of your opinions on the book by describing the type of reader to whom you would recommend it. Younger readers, older readers, and aficionados of romantic drama/mystery stories/comedy, for example. Do you have any novels or series in mind to compare them to?
