“Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?” Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had in all directions flowed over his […]
Gone Girls, 1900 Edition
Picnic at Hanging Rock is a small book, only 224 pages, that packs an outsize punch. I can’t remember where I stumbled on it – if it was through blogging or goodreads, or just by following one of the bookish rabbit trails that I find myself chasing when I start looking at books. The book description on Goodreads likens it to “Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, and Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides as a masterpiece of intrigue.” […]
The best thing about this book is its title.
I’ve never seen the film adaptation of Picnic At Hanging Rock, but the trailers for the new BBC series piqued my interest and so I thought it high time I read this classic tale of mystery….I don’t know what I was expecting, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this. Back in 1900, most of the pupils of a stuffy Australian girl’s boarding school are going on a picnic to a local beauty spot, Hanging Rock. While there, a small group of girls decides to go […]