freelance writer, snarky spinster
Screw April; February is the real Cruelest Month February heard me telling it to sod off. It's only the 10th, and it's already wiped the floor with my pasty arse. Hell, so far all of 2018 hates my guts. Yes, I said I wanted an exciting year. But my definition of "exciting" is …
Continue reading Early February check in: Spark & Shelley & Bowie (and abject misery)
2017: A Year of Literary Nonfiction Celebrating British Women Writers Hat tip to nonfiction scribblers assiduously churning out new literary biographies and criticism about these iconic female authors each and every year. Convinced surely there could be no new angle, I’m always pleasantly surprised when out pops a new one. Wherever this New Idea …
Continue reading New books about Austen, Woolf and the Brontës
Paperback: 352 pages Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (April 4, 2016) Language: English ISBN-10: 0393352706 ISBN-13: 978-0393352702 You may remember me from such manias as a fascination with all things Brontë, evinced by several posts written earlier this year. Upon the Grand Event of the purchasing of Claire Harman's biography Charlotte Brontë: …
Books mentioned in this post: Various biographies of the Brontes Someone Like You by Roald Dahl White Noise by Don DeLillo What passes for literary criticism these days are underlined or bracketed passages, words penned in the margins of books I'm reading. Occasionally, I'll take a picture of a particularly striking passage, or the …
Continue reading The Brontes, Don DeLillo and Roald Dahl, and other semi-lunatic ravings
The very thought my soul inspires, And kindles bright her latent fires; My Muse feels heart-warm fond desires, And spreads her wing, And aims to join th’ angelic choirs, And sweetly sing. May rosy Health with speed return, And all your wonted ardour burn, And sickness buried in his urn, Sleep many years! So, countless …
Continue reading Patrick Bronte’s Ireland: The roots of a family
It seems this novelization has lots more hard information than I'd given it credit for. At the very least, it's giving me lots of bits about the Brontës I'd forgotten about. For instance: Branwell's temper tantrums - I give Patrick much credit for dealing with his son's often explosive behavior. When things didn't go his …
Continue reading Reading Dark Quartet: The Story of the Brontes by Lynne Reid Banks
I don't know if there's a better assertion of my rediscovered reading freedom than returning to the Victorians. I've had this book in my collection at least a decade, a volume I picked up at the now-defunct annual book sale sponsored by Brandeis University. Tens of thousands of books, such an unfathomable number you owed …
Continue reading Not afraid of Virginia Woolf. Or the Brontes.
Release: March 11, 2011 (in select theatres) Mia Wasikowska (“Alice in Wonderland”) and Michael Fassbender (“Inglourious Basterds”) star in the romantic drama based on Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, from acclaimed director Cary Fukunaga (“Sin Nombre”). In the story, Jane Eyre flees Thornfield House, where she works as a governess for wealthy Edward Rochester. As …
