BLURB AND REVIEW

Another book set in Yorkshire!

This classic ugly-ducking tale, richly imagined with believable characters, if somewhat outlandish plots. Jane is put through a miserable childhood - dragged up by a bitter aunt and bullied by vicious cousins. Her escape comes in the form of the most basic boarding school, where for the first time, she makes a friend.

Jane eventually achieves a positions as a governess. Her employer, Mr Rochester is a strange mix of magic and mystery. She and he become involved...with tragic consequences...

These bare bones are only meant to entice you into a world, carefully crafted by one of the most significant female authors.

BLURB
Of the three Bronte sisters, Emily and Charlotte are better known, yet it is Anne's work which carries some of the strongest feminist themes. In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall a devout young woman named Helen falls in love with a man who is handsome, but whose values are questionable; willing to believe she can alter his character, she marries him. Her marriage becomes a misery she has no power to change until she devises a bold plan to take control. Her story comes through two voices - her own and that of Gilbert Markham, a man who falls in love with Helen later in her life - and is told through journals and letters written over a period of time. Because of the privacy and immediacy of these narratives, the reader sees personal changes and attitudes Helen and Gilbert are often unaware of at the time: we witness Helen's first naive protestations of passion for her husband and follow her through her eventual disillusionment; we recognize Gilbert's early, unconscious egotism.

REVIEW
This is a beautiful love story, two love stories actually, but more than that it exemplifies all that was great about the Brontes writing - these strong women, creating other strong women!
So much more compassionate and honest than Wuthering Heights, and a little less bleak than Jane Eyre, it's rapidly becoming the Bronte book I reach for first!!

kathy! oh kathy!

The classic novel about creepy old Heathcliffe and his entourage. I re-read this book at Halloween, and it really is a fitting time to read it then.

I had no earthly idea what people see in this book. I do love classics and I do love women writers. So what's so wrong with this one? I couldn't stand Heathcliff. I hated Cathy and thought she was a wimp

Can anyone out there help me understand the value of this classic?
I would love the help!

Heathcliff is dreamy...

BLURB
the story is narrated by Lockwood, a gentleman visiting the Yorkshire moors where the novel is set, and of Mrs Dean, housekeeper to the Earnshaw family, who had been witness of the interlocked destinies of the original owners of the Heights. In a series of flashbacks and time shifts, Brontë draws a powerful picture of the enigmatic Heathcliff, who is brought to Heights from the streets of Liverpool by Mr Earnshaw. Heathcliff is treated as Earnshaw's own children, Catherine and Hindley. After his death Heathcliff is bullied by Hindley, who loves Catherine, but she marries Edgar Linton. Heathcliff 's destructive force is unleashed, and his first victim is Catherine, who dies giving birth to a girl, another Catherine. Isabella Linton, Edgar's sister, whom he had married, flees to the south. Their son Linton and Catherine are married, but always sickly Linton dies. Hareton, Hindley's son, and the young widow became close. Increasingly isolated and alienated from daily life, Heathcliff experiences visions, and he longs for the death that will reunite him with Catherine.

REVIEW
I HATE this book with a passion beyond description. All could have been avoided if even one of the immmense cast had a conscious. But no, these two dimensional idiots are all idiots - incapable of personal growth......GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
And Heathcliffe - how can anyone place him in the same light as Mr Darcy or Rochester? A romantic hero - I think not!


UPDATE
My mother recently re-read this book for the first time since she was a teenager, with her book club. Though all the women had loved it when they were younger, they felt in the main the same way as I do!
rotton sentimental drivel!

I have always loved dickens. what christmas would be christmas without him?

BLURB
Ebenezer Scrooge is the central character - a lonely old miser of a man, he keeps all of his money locked away, and allows neither himself nor his impoverished relatives to enjoy it. Returning to his chilly home on Christmas eve, he is rather alarmed to find his once-business partner Jacob Marley waiting for him. This is hardly surprising, since Marley has been dead for seven years. Scrooge is warned that unless he changes his miserable ways, he will spend the afterlife repenting. The exchange between the two is followed by a lengthy night, in which three spirits - the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas yet to come, visit Ebenezer.

REVIEW
This is one of those children's books that really isn't only for children. The story is so familiar, I'm amazed by how many people never get round to reading this classic.
Charles Dickens is, in my opinion, the man when it comes to depicting human misery and redemption. His words are all the more delightful in their simplicity, and this story touches the hearts of almost all (i grant you that there are some real life Scrooges who really aren't that moved by much!!).

Started 15 Nov 2006

Finished 21 Nov 2006

great long cozy read

Again, this site should rate out of ten, because Great Expectations would get seven. I found it cute, which, while fun and a delight, is not what I read books for. The points at which I was truly engaged were too distant from each other to save this book for me. I don't mean to say that I think it a failure - I don't at all; it just didn't transport me into that stream of terrible beauty that the books I find truly satisfying wrench me into.

BLURB
Pip is raised in abject squalor. He meets a hardened criminal one night in an eerie graveyard, and impresses him with his good nature.
After this, he is exposed to a crazy old lady, Miss Favisham and her beautiful niece Estelle.
Years later, Pip is raised into society by a mysterious benefactor, and his snobbishness, fall from grace, and ultimate redemption is laid out for us to enjoy.

REVIEW
After the misery that was 'A Tale of Two Cities', Dickens returns to his comedy (albeit dark) roots in this fabulous epic.
Personally, for me, the whole book is about Miss Favisham! One of the greatest vindictive cows in literary history (up there with Lady Macbeth and Xenia, she also makes a fab appearance in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next Series).

Pip is one of those delightfully gormless hero's. he does nothing to deserve the love and support of his family. His talents are never really as great as he thinks, nevertheless, one roots for him throughout this classic!

Again, this site should rate out of ten, because Great Expectations would get seven. I found it cute, which, while fun and a delight, is not what I read books for. The points at which I was truly engaged were too distant from each other to save this book for me. I don't mean to say that I think it a failure - I don't at all; it just didn't transport me into that stream of terrible beauty that the books I find truly satisfying wrench me into.

"I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long long to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out."

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

A heartbreaking book. . .

I guessed the ending of this book by reading the back cover, but I was still moved by this book. Wonderful. Classic Dickens.

BLURB
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...."
"It is a far, far, better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."

REVIEW
I really didn't enjoy this book. It had me in tears in places, and its the gloomiest outlook on life EVER!
This was one of the bleakes of the Dickens books - no funny names, no quirky characters, just the tragedy that played out in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution.

I do find Dicken's books hard going and it takes me forever to read one of his books. This is one of my favourites.

Blurb:
Through his hero Dickens draws openly on his own life, as David Copperfield recalls his experiences from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Rosa Dartle, Dora, Steerforth and Uriah Heep are among the characters who focus the hero's sexual and emotional drives, and Mr Micawber, a portrait of Dicken's own father, evokes the mixture of love, nostalgia and guilt that, put together, make this Dicken's most quoted and best-loved novel.

BLURB

REVIEW
Told in the first person, the hapless David is instantly likable and charming. I was drawn into his adventures and delighted at each of his triumphs