Margaret Hale, the heroine in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South is not a typical Victorian lady. Continue reading Woman as Una Duessa: Revisiting Gaskell’s Beloved Classic North and South: Margaret Hale’s Duality
Writers write books. They also write about books—reviews, literary analysis, how-to manuals. And, of course, fiction. Fiction about books often deal with our relationship to books or what they mean to us. The book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, is one such novel. Set shortly after World War II, Juliet Ashton, a journalist living in … Continue reading A Delight: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
I just read three books in an hour. True, they’re short kid-length books. An epistolary trilogy whose essence I’m at a loss to fully capture. All I can say is the Griffin and Sabine Trilogy by Nick Bantock is a joy to read. Yet, it’s also sad, hopeful, poignant. And so achingly human. I’ll treasure it and read it many times. The main story that … Continue reading Books As Art: Nick Bantock’s Griffin and Sabine Trilogy
If Àlain Badiou, greatest living French philosopher—that is, according to his compatriots—writes a book called In Praise of Love, wouldn’t you pay attention? After all, love is an ever fascinating subject and some of the greatest philosophers are French (Voltaire, Descartes, Sartre to name a few). And the French are up there as some of the world’s greatest lovers (after the Spaniards, Italians, and Brazilians—all … Continue reading In Praise Of Love—But What Is It, Really?
Have you read Love In The Time Of Cholera? Have you been as enchanted by it as so many people and big reviewers seem to have been? The Christian Science Monitor thinks it’s boldly romantic, profoundly imaginative, fully imagined work of fiction that expands our sense of life’s infinite possibilities. I don’t quite grasp the difference between “profoudly imaginative” and “fully imagined” but “life’s infinite … Continue reading My Feminist Sensibility vs. Love In The Time Of Cholera
How much do you know about sex? Probably less than you think. That’s how I felt, anyway, after reading The Story of Sex, a delightful book on sex. I first came across The Story of Sex in an article in theguardian.com with a long, formidable title: A graphic history of sex: ‘There is no gene that drives sexuality. All sexuality is learned. As if that … Continue reading The French do it again: An irresistible Story of Sex
Is it merely coincidence that I see a thread running through the two books by Yasunari Kawabata that I’ve read? Maybe, I should read at least one more before I conclude that this 1968 Nobel Prize winner, who writes about obsession, is himself obsessed with the issue of older Japanese men preying on vulnerable young Japanese women. I understand Kawabata’s obsession better, after a quick … Continue reading Kawabata’s Beauty and Sadness: Love, Sex, and Revenge
Welcome, Reluctant Stranger! (Between Two Worlds Book 3), by E. Journey, is a touching story about a woman who must confront her family’s past. Leilani Torres, a psychologist, helps people heal. But can she heal herself? When she was only nine, Leilani, her mother, and two siblings flee their Pacific country, Costa Mora. Her father was supposed to follow them to the United States, but … Continue reading Welcome Reluctant Stranger: 5 stars—Self-Publishing Review
How many ways can you get to know a culture different from that in which you grew up? One delectable way described in this review is through cuisines, which I’ve amplified in another post. Marlena DeBlasi takes a different tack in her memoir, That Summer in Sicily. While she does sumptuously describe sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures in earlier chapters, she seduces you into experiencing … Continue reading Loving A Prince And That Summer in Sicily
Escape Into Reality 