Reading in the Garden

Loose Lady Bovary Madame Bovary by  Gustave Flaubert ,  not to be confused with  Madame Butterfly —different Madame, different country, different time—is about an unfaithful French housewife in the early to mid-1800s. Madame Emma Bovary has a beautiful daughter and is married to a doctor but she is bored, bored, bored. Stuck out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do, and peeved by her dull and lonely life, she starts to despise her husband. Just the look of him disgusts her. One scene at dinner reminds me of Kathleen Turner’s repulsion at watching her husband, Michael Douglas, eat dinner in  War of the Roses.   Madame Bovary’s skin seems to crawl as she watches Charles innocently enjoy his meal. He sucked his teeth after eating, and made a horrid gulping noise at every mouthful of soup he swallowed, and he was beginning to put on flesh, his eyes, which were barely enough to begin with, looked as if they would be squeezed up into his forehead by his podgy cheeks. G

This Ain’t No Lady Unless you’re living under a rock, almost everyone has heard of the book Fifty Shades of Grey , even if you haven’t read it—like me.  Evidently, the series of three books is so steamy, it advanced global warming a couple of notches.  I understand that the trilogy takes passion and sex to a new level.  My sister was one of the devoted readers.  While reading Fifty Shades on a hot summer day, she got so excited she accidentally dropped her book in the kiddie pool where she was cooling her feet. (She might tell you that it was the dog's fault when he jumped on her or some likely story, but that's my version and I'm sticking to it.) If you’re not quite ready for that degree of intensity, there are other tamer versions of lust, infidelity, and romps between the sheets that you may want to consider. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence , for example, is a 1928 novel that was so notorious it was banned in England until 1960. Besides detailed sex s

An Austen Addict's Alter-Reality Instead of looking at a book by Jane Austen, I’m switching gears with a book that serves as a tribute to Austen. Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler is about a modern-day woman who considers Pride and Prejudice her “drug of choice.” It’s the book she rereads through every breakup, disappointment, and crisis. And this time she really needs Elizabeth and Darcy to get her through a doozy, the breakup of her engagement. She pours herself an icy shot of Absolut, cracks open the book, and then things get a bit fuzzy. When she wakes up, she’s in a strange room with strangers all around her. The obviously confused Brits keep calling her Miss Mansfield. It’s all quite a dream until Courtney can’t pinch herself awake. She’s actually in another time and another woman’s body. The back of the book cover explains that “… not even her level of Austen mania has prepared Courtney for the chamber pots and filthy coaching inns of ni

Appreciating Austen Jane Austen, 1775-1817 Jane Austen is one of the most popular English writers of all time. Two hundred years of publication is a pretty impressive record.  There aren't too many people who haven’t heard of her.  Who hasn't watched a movie based on one of her novels?  But, for as much as some people happily get lost in the language with words like thither, mischance, and felicity (Kathleen Kelly in You've Got Mail, for example), other people shy away from the archaic vocabulary of the past. It’s not always easy, breezy reading.  If you haven’t yet dipped your toes into the world of Austen and don’t know how ready you might be for it, you may want to consider starting with Northanger Abbey . Northanger Abbey is Austen’s first novel, although it wasn't published until after her death. It is shorter than her other works but just as charming. Like the others, it’s about finding love in a time of great social restraints and rules. Sevent

Twain’s Twins Meet Pudd'nhead Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain is the story of a young misunderstood lawyer who has a hobby of collecting fingerprints, which he later uses to solve a crime. The story begins with Dave Wilson, arriving in Dawson’s Landing, Missouri in 1830. We discover his background and his struggles to become a respected attorney in the small town. One off-handed remark, however, dooms him and the town’s people quickly think of him as a fool, dubbing him “Pudd'nhead.”  Then, Wilson’s story fades out while the book sheds light on another tale of a slave called Roxy. Roxy has a very light skinned baby, who happens to be the same age as her master’s son.  There’s a shakeup at the house where slaves are caught stealing and threatened to be sent down South.  Worried, Roxy decides to switch her son with the master’s, protecting him from harm.  The slaves are not sent south after all. Her son now thought to be Tom Driscoll the master’s son, grows up in a li

The Mark of Greatness Roughing It  by Mark Twain A weaver of wit, sarcasm, and astute observation, Mark Twain offers this memoir as an account of his trip through Nevada, California, and the Sandwich Islands, now known as Hawaii in the mid 1800s. In 1861 Twain travels by stagecoach to Carson City, Nevada, where his brother, Orion, was appointed Territorial Secretary of Nevada. Twain recounts frontier life in Nevada with humorous tales of thieves, murderers, miners, Chinamen, buffalos, and coyotes. He tells of Mormon immigrants, of life in the desert, prospecting, and the dreary and laborious task of processing silver ore. Although both my husband and I read this book years ago, we still laugh at the “spider” incident.  It’s also hard to forget Old Miss Wagner and her borrowed glass eye rolling around in her head and scaring all the kids. With one colorful anecdote after another, this book is pure entertainment. They say laughter is the best medicine.  So, the next time you,

Annette’s 21 Book Salute Some books are entertaining.  Some are interesting.  Some books are fun and fast.  Some draw you in because of an exciting plot.  Some keep you going because of the author’s great writing style. And some books contain many if not all of these hooks that make them memorable. They wedge themselves in the folds of your brain, where you find yourself thinking about them every once in awhile.  The books listed below have done just that.  They’ve settled into a warm and cozy spot in my mind and heart.  For me, they are unforgettable.  They are some of my favorite books, although there are many others that also came very close to falling into this category. It was actually difficult to whittle this list down.  This is not a complete and final list of my favorites, just the ones   that I have reviewed so far.   Check it out and see if any of them fall on your list, too. Click on the titles to read the reviews. In Alphabetical Order Angela’s Ashes

Magnificence and Murder at the 1893 World’s Fair Another book about a murderer I enjoyed was The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson . It’s really two stories in one, based on actual events.  One plot follows architect, Daniel H. Burnham, of the 1893 World’s Fair (aka World’s Columbian Exposition) in Chicago.  The other narrative details the first recorded American serial killer, Dr. H.H. Holmes.  The planning and execution (forgive the pun) of the World’s Fair was absolutely amazing.  The fair covered about 600 acres with approximately 200 new buildings erected in a very short amount of time—all for six months of entertainment that over 27 million people attended!  It’s so sad that the remarkable buildings were intended to be temporary and no longer exist. While Burnham was busy planning something extraordinarily magnificent, H.H. Holmes, whose real name is Herman Webster Mudgett, planned something extraordinarily horrifying.  He too, constructed a remarkable building, but