Thirty-first book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. Yet again, I have taken up a play by Oscar Wilde and yet again, I’m amazed by the layer upon layer of depth and meaning that the satirical work contains. You wouldn’t think that a comedy of errors would have anything to offer in the way of moral commentary or philosophical meanderings, but when you’re reading Wilde, you better expect profundity in his most trivial statements. This is a play about two men who pretend to […]
Another Historical Romance, But a Master Work of Romantic Fiction
In a genre that wallows in cultural necrophilia, you have to love characters fighting actively against the aristocracy and existing power structures. Or at least I do. Apparently, so does author Courtney Milan because she is doing it again in a novel that is easily one of the best historical romances ever written and one that simultaneously subverts and embraces the genre. Never afraid to beat romance tropes about the head and shoulders, The Suffragette Scandal, like The Countess Conspiracy before it, takes feminism and […]
Catching up on the classics: Silas Marner
I always find it hard to rate and review classics. Usually they’re classics for a reason, I usually enjoy them just fine, and at the very least I appreciate them. Earlier in the year I read Middlemarch, which was wonderful and long, and I thought I should expand my Eliot horizons. Silas Marner is much shorter than Middlemarch, and a much easier read. You probably know the basics: old, miserly bachelor happens to become the caretaker of an orphan, who teaches him the True Meaning […]
That Was a Lot Less Romantic Than I Expected
Tristan and Yseut rank up there with Lancelot and Guinevere for notorious/famous adulterous lovers. In fact, King Arthur even appears in this story, and in some versions, Tristan is an Arthurian knight. Despite this fame or infamy, I had never actually gone back to the beginning and read the original story, instead relying on references to the couple or reimaginings, or not so good James Franco movies. http://notesfromtheofficersclub.blogspot.com/2014/03/book-22-romance-of-tristan.html