In what must be the most frightening birthday surprise ever, on Dana’s 26th birthday, as she is moving into a new house with her husband Kevin, she suddenly feels dizzy and gets transported away from her safe and familiar surroundings in 1976. She comes to in the woods by a river, where a boy is in the process of drowning. Dana reacts instinctively and wades into the water, rescuing the boy. Faced with the boy’s hysterical mother, and more terrifyingly, the boy’s angry father, who […]
Dear Fake Character People: An Open Letter to (most of) the Characters in Persuasion
And so concludes my Great Austen Re-Read of (Mostly) 2016. This will be my last review in this format for a while, so I’ll try to make it good. This is the seventh in my series of classic book reviews wherein I write them in the form of letters to the characters. I tried to read all of Jane Austen’s books in 2016, and only missed by one. But reading Persuasion is as good a start to 2017 as I can think of, so perhaps ’tis a happy accident (she says only […]
Dear God, let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.
Francie Nolan grows up in the tenements of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York in the early years of the 20th Century. The granddaughter of German and Irish immigrants, Francie and her younger brother Neeley (real name Cornelius) grow up dirt poor, but thankfully don’t really realise it until they get older. Their mother, Katie, works hard as a janitress to make sure they have a place to stay and food on the table. Their father, Johnny, is handsome and charming, a gifted singer, and a […]
I wish I’d read this book years ago
After little Patrick’s father dies, he is left to the care of his eccentric and adventurous aunt, Mame. His childhood goes from one of routine and order to one rather more unusual, and over the course of his adolescence and early adulthood, his colourful Auntie Mame keeps providing him with amazing anecdotes. Each chapter starts with the author reading about some saintly spinster from New England who took in an orphan, leading to his own recollections of his life with his aunt. Suffice to say, […]