Dickens, Charles "Nicholas Nickleby"

Dickens, Charles "Nicholas Nickleby. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" - 1838/39

For the Classics Spin #39, we received #3 and this was my novel.

I have read most of the books by Charles Dickens by now but there are still a few left. So, I was happy that this number got drawn. So, here was the chance to devour one more of his fabulous books.

And fabulous it was. It had everything a Dickens novel needs: villains and virtues, rogues and good people, a helicopter mother from the Georgian era, just a caleidoscope of people from his time with lots of intrigues. Not to forget the great names he gives his characters: The Cheerybles, The Crummles, Sir Mulberry Hawk, Newman Noggs, Peg Sliderskew, Wackford Squeers, one of them funnier than the last.

Of course, this is a novel against social injustice. And while we might think that is better today, some things never change.

Obviously, a lot happens in the story, much of it is already given in the synopsis, so I wouldn't want to add to that in order not to spoil it for the first-time readers. Therefore, I finish with a quote from Oscar Wilde (in "The Importance of Being Earnest"): "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means".

From the back cover:

"When Nicholas Nickleby is left penniless after his father's death, he appeals to his wealthy uncle to help him find work and to protect his mother and sister. But Ralph Nickleby proves both hard-hearted and unscrupulous, and Nicholas finds himself forced to make his own way in the world. His adventures gave Dickens the opportunity to portray an extraordinary gallery of rogues and eccentrics, such as Wackford Squeers, the tyrannical headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, a school for unwanted boys; the slow-witted orphan Smike, rescued by Nicholas; and the gloriously theatrical Mr. and Mrs. Crummles and their daughter, the 'infant phenomenon'. Like many of Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby is characterised by his outrage at cruelty and social injustice, but it is also a flamboyantly exuberant work, revealing his comic genius at its most unerring."

Here are all the books on my original Classics Club list.
And here is a list of all the books I read with the Classics Spin.

Ryan, Donal "The Thing About December"

 

Ryan, Donal "The Thing About December" - 2013

This was our international online book club book for March 2024.

I think I expected something different from this book. Something typical for Northern Ireland, I guess. Well, this could have taken place anywhere. The story was not especially well told or exciting in any way.

A boy with some kind of mental illness is left orphaned and inherits his parents' farm. The village wants him to sell it because then they all can make a large profit. There are some bullies in the village but he also makes a friend. That's it in a nutshell. However, I couldn't get any interesting access to the story, it was way too boring for me.

Just not my thing.

Comments from the group:

I did not like it.

I kept having this bad feeling, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I had hoped I would somehow end up rooting for the protagonist, but because of his attitude I couldn't even properly do that. 

What I did enjoy about the book was the picture it painted of a particular place and time in Ireland, and can definitely see why it won a fair amount of local prizes. 

If this book were written with the exact same story, but placed for example in Africa, it would be hauling in big international literary prizes, because this type of stories of the unfortunate seems to me like flypaper to flies for people from the first world, while I feel "we" get uncomfortable when reading about poverty and unfortunate events and people closer to home.

In Finland there has been a fair amount of these types of times, that are just not reported on much, with extreme high suicide rates and starvation (for example the economy crash in the 90s and after WWII when russia was pretty much blackmailing Finland for "retribution payments" to get an excuse to invade if we couldnt keep paying, and the infighting and murdering after WWI.) So there is a fair amount of Finnish literature on similar topic, that I personally avoid.

There is a sub-genre of literature called "looser literature" in Finland, where the protagonist like in this book are victims of their circumstance in life and a difficult character to like because of learned attitudes, while at the same time causing one to feel sorry for him. One member has read a lot of this type of books, so had a lot of comparison points and thoughts about society's stance on these kinds of individuals.

From the back cover:

"While the Celtic Tiger rages, and greed becomes the norm, Johnsey Cunliffe desperately tries to hold on to the familiar, even as he loses those who all his life have protected him from a harsh world. Village bullies and scheming land-grabbers stand in his way, no matter where he turns.

Set over the course of one year of Johnsey’s life, The Thing About December breathes with his grief, bewilderment, humour and agonizing self-doubt. This is a heart-twisting tale of a lonely man struggling to make sense of a world moving faster than he is."

Brontë, Charlotte "Shirley" - 1849

 

Brontë, Charlotte "Shirley" - 1849

This is my tenth Classic Spin and we were given #2.

One cannot read anything by Charlotte Brontë without comparing it to "Jane Eyre". Whilst that novel was about a poor girl with no relatives to help her, the poor girl in this story has an uncle who raises her. And cousins who like her. And a rich friend. So, a completely different story, one could say.

However, Shirley and her friend Caroline also show us the situation of women in the 19^th century just as well as Jane Eyre. The story might not be as dramatic but it certainly is interesting. Charlotte Brontë shows quite a bit of humour in her narrative. Still, not my favourite.

From the back cover:

"Following the tremendous popular success of Jane Eyre, which earned her lifelong notoriety as a moral revolutionary, Charlotte Brontë vowed to write a sweeping social chronicle that focused on 'something real and unromantic as Monday morning.' Set in the industrializing England of the Napoleonic wars and Luddite revolts of 1811-12, Shirley (1849) is the story of two contrasting heroines. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, who is trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory and whose bare life symbolizes the plight of single women in the nineteenth century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.

A work that combines social commentary with the more private preoccupations of Jane Eyre, Shirley demonstrates the full range of Brontë's literary talent. 'Shirley is a revolutionary novel,' wrote Brontë biographer Lyndall Gordon. 'Shirley follows Jane Eyre as a new exemplar but so much a forerunner of the feminist of the later twentieth century that it is hard to believe in her actual existence in 1811-12. She is a theoretic possibility: what a woman might be if she combined independence and means of her own with intellect. Charlotte Brontë imagined a new form of power, equal to that of men, in a confident young woman [whose] extraordinary freedom has accustomed her to think for herself.... Shirley [is] Brontë's most feminist novel'."

Here are all the books on my original Classics Club list.
And here is a list of all the books I read with the Classics Spin.

Kingsolver, Barbara "Pigs in Heaven"

Kingsolver, Barbara "Pigs in Heaven" - 1993

This is a follow-up of the novel "The Bean Trees", not necessarily my favourite by Barbara Kingsolver, whose stories I usually really like. But I think the main reason that was not my favourite, and this one won't be either, is what happens to the protagonists.

First, a baby is left with a young woman who then tries to bring her up without much help from outside. A couple of years later, someone finds she shouldn't have been able to adopt the child after all because the little girl is Cherokee. Well, I understand the native Americans but I really feel for the mother who fears having to give up her child. Such an impossible dilemna which doesn't seem to be so rare, after all, the story is based on true-life stories.

I like to read about different cultures, I like to read about problematic scenarios, maybe this was just a little too much for me, I don't know. I still liked the writing and will read more books by Barbara Kingsolver.

From the back cover:

"When six-year-old Turtle witnesses a freak accident at the Hoover Dam, her insistence, and her mother's belief in her, leads to a man's dramatic rescue. But Turtle's moment of celebrity quickly draws her into a conflict of historic proportions that will envelop not only Turtle and her mother but everyone else who touches their lives."

I have also read other books by Barbara Kingsolver, you can find my reviews here.  She remains one of my favourite authors.

Dickens, Charles "The Old Curiosity Shop"

Dickens, Charles "The Old Curiosity Shop" - 1840

When I mentioned to another blogger that I was just reading this book, he said that it "… was not one of my favorite Dickens, but that's a high bar, I still enjoyed it." Now that I just finished it, I can say that he put my thoughts into words. It's definitely not my favourite, that's still David Copperfield, but I have yet to read a book by Charles Dickens I don't enjoy.

The enjoyment of reading wasn't improved by the copy I had, an A4 sized cheap reprint (letter size in the US). Well, it couldn't be helped. It taught me to look for the size of an edition when ordering books online.

Funnily enough, this is supposed to be the most popular of Dickens' books during his lifetime. As it says on the cover, readers in New York even stormed the ship bringing the final instalment. Reminds me of Harry Potter today. Wow! This that not all tales stand the test of time equally well.

However, as with all books by Dickens, he observed his surrounding so well and could describe it so you are transformed to his world that it is definitely worth reading. Especially if you like classics. And chunky books.

I still have a few to go and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on them.

From the back cover:

"The Old Curiosity Shop is a novel by Charles Dickens. The plot follows the life of Nell Trent and her grandfather, both residents of The Old Curiosity Shop in London. The Old Curiosity Shop was one of two novels (the other being Barnaby Rudge) which Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock, which lasted from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York readers stormed the wharf when the ship bearing the final instalment arrived in 1841. The Old Curiosity Shop was printed in book form in 1841."

Stachniak, Eva "The Winter Palace"

Stachniak, Eva "The Winter Palace. A Novel of Catherine the Great" - 2011

I love learning about history while reading about ordinary people living through different times. In this case, the story of Varvara also tells the story of Empress Catherine the Great, how she entered the Russian court, how she became empress, how all the intrigues and betrayals helped her to get to the throne. This is not just a story about the empress but also about mid-eighteenth-century Russia. A very intimate behind the scenes story with a lot of information about life at the time. Something I always enjoy.

I really liked the protagonist, Varvara. Coming with her poor parents to St. Petersburg from Poland, her father makes sure she is taken in by the Empress Elizabeth if anything should happen to him. We see the palace, the court, and the arrival of German princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg who is to become Catherine the Great through her eyes. Very interesting.

I hope Eva Stachniak will write more historical novels like this.

From the back cover:

"When Varvara, a young Polish orphan, arrives at the glittering, dangerous court of the Empress Elizabeth in St Petersburg, she is schooled in skills ranging from lock-picking to love-making, learning above all else to stay silent - and listen.

Then Sophie, a vulnerable young princess, arrives from Prussia as a prospective bride for the Empress' heir. Set to spy on her, Vavara soon becomes her friend and confidante, and helps her navigate the illicit liaisons and the treacherous shifting allegiances of the court. But Sophie's destiny is to become the notorious Catherine the Great. Are her ambitions more lofty and far-reaching than anyone suspected, and will she stop at nothing to achieve absolute power?"

Burnett, Frances Hodgson "The Secret Garden"

Burnett, Frances Hodgson "The Secret Garden" - 1911

After reading "The Clockmaker's Daughter", I read a review by my faithful blog friend Judy from "Keep the Wisdom" about "The Forgotten Garden" by the same author, Kate Morton.

While discussing that book, I had to reveal that I never read "The Secret Garden" as a child, probably because it was not as popular in Germany as it was in the English-speaking world.

Why that would be the case … I have no idea. It is a sweet book. I know I would have enjoyed it as a child, probably even more than I did now.

It's a story about how important it is for children to love the outdoors, to have access to other children, to be loved. Even if it is just by a little robin.

I totally agree with Martha and Dickon's mother, Susan Sowerby, who says "Two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own way - or always to have it". The latter is even worse than the former since there is no reason why you should always give in to a child. They will throw tantrums like a three-year-old even when they're in their nineties. She seems to have her act together anyway. I think I liked her most of all the characters in the novel.

In this story, an arrogant young girl who grew up in India, has to come and live with her uncle and her arrogant young cousin. Only through the discovery of a secret garden, do they manage to grow into lovely young children. Wouldn't it be nice if all children were given this chance?

The only story by Frances Hodgson Burnett that I know is "Little Lord Fauntleroy" because they turned it into a beautiful film and show it on German television every year at Christmas. No need to say that we have it on DVD now so we can watch the non-dubbed, original version.

I also remember seeing an adaptation of "A Little Princess" years and years ago.

Looks like it's time I read both those books, as well.

From the back cover:

"'One of the most delightful and enduring classics of children's literature, The Secret Garden by Victorian author Frances Hodgson Burnett has remained a firm favorite with children the world over ever since it made its first appearance. Initially published as a serial story in 1910 in The American Magazine, it was brought out in novel form in 1911.

The plot centers round Mary Lennox, a young English girl who returns to England from India, having suffered the immense trauma by losing both her parents in a cholera epidemic. However, her memories of her parents are not pleasant, as they were a selfish, neglectful and pleasure-seeking couple. Mary is given to the care of her uncle Archibald Craven, whom she has never met. She travels to his home, Misselthwaite Manor located in the gloomy Yorkshire, a vast change from the sunny and warm climate she was used to. When she arrives, she is a rude, stubborn and given to stormy temper tantrums. However, her nature undergoes a gradual transformation when she learns of the tragedies that have befallen her strict and disciplinarian uncle whom she earlier feared and despised. Once when he's away from home, Mary discovers a charming walled garden which is always kept locked. The mystery deepens when she hears sounds of sobbing from somewhere within her uncle's vast mansion. The kindly servants ignore her queries or pretend they haven't heard, spiking Mary's curiosity.

The Secret Garden appeals to both young and old alike. It has wonderful elements of mystery, spirituality, charming characters and an authentic rendering of childhood emotions and experiences. Commonsense, truth and kindness, compassion and a belief in the essential goodness of human beings lie at the heart of this unforgettable story. It is the best known of Frances Hodgson Burnett's works, though most of us have definitely heard of, if not read, her other novel Little Lord Fauntleroy.

The book has been adapted extensively on stage, film and television and translated into all the world's major languages. In 1991, a Japanese anime version was launched for television in Japan. It remains a popular and beloved story of a child's journey into maturity, and a must-read for every child, parent, teacher and anyone who would enjoy this fascinating glimpse of childhood. One of the most delightful and enduring classics of children's literature, The Secret Garden by Victorian author Frances Hodgson Burnett has remained a firm favorite with children the world over ever since it made its first appearance. Initially published as a serial story in 1910 in The American Magazine, it was brought out in novel form in 1911.'"

Dickens, Charles "David Copperfield"

Dickens, Charles "David Copperfield" - 1850

Full title: The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)

Every time I read another book by Charles Dickens, I have the impression, this is definitely my favourite. But, I do believe I have found the best ever now. Apparently, it mirrors Charles Dickens' life the most of all his books.

Somewhere I read "I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child, and his name is David Copperfield". I couldn't agree more.

I loved all the nice characters and hated all the bad ones, as it should be but this was really a very story where you could get immersed. The language is as beautiful as the flow of the story, the details as great as the English countryside. We can follow our hero from his childhood into maturity, get to meet everyone who is important in his life. Even though the book is more than 150 years old, we can still retrace the steps, feel for the protagonist and his sidekicks. That's what constitutes a real classic.

As always, his names are always hilarious. But nothing really tops Uriah Heep!

Of course, the disadvantage of reading such a big book of 1,000 pages always is, you feel like you lost a friend when you finish it.

I will definitely have to find my next Dickens book soon!

Even if you're not much into classics or chunky books, if you ever considered reading a Dickens novel, take this one.

From the back cover:

"Dickens's epic, exuberant novel is one of the greatest coming-of-age stories in literature. It chronicles David Copperfield's extraordinary journey through life, as he encounters villains, saviours, eccentrics and grotesques, including the wicked Mr Murdstone, stout-hearted Peggotty, formidable Betsey Trotwood, impecunious Micawber and odious Uriah Heep.

Dickens's great Bildungsroman (based, in part, on his own boyhood, and which he described as a 'favourite child') is a work filled with life, both comic and tragic."

Dickens, Charles "Bleak House"

Dickens, Charles "Bleak House" - 1852/53

My seventh Dickens after "A Christmas Carol", "Great Expectations", "A Tale of Two Cities", "The Pickwick Papers", "Little Dorrit" and "Hard Times" but certainly not my last one. I hope I will get through all of his works one day.

A thousand pages of a well-written novel, Apparently, this is supposedly an early work of detective fiction and is one of his later titles. But apart from that, it certainly is a Dickens novel. The characters' names might not be as weird as in some of his books. Maybe he had no more ideas or he grew tired of finding those kind of names, I don't know. I missed it, of course.

This book is a page turner. Having worked in the legal system myself (even though in a different country), I could relate a lot to all the difficulties in the law suit. It's the same everywhere. That bit might be a little tedious for some readers but I promise, it's worth it.

What I love about Dickens, even though he grew up under poor circumstances, he can describe any character, rich or poor, clever or not so clever, he manages to put them all into his novels and makes them appear alive. He was a master of the pen.

From the back cover:

"As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerston, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, a destitute crossing-sweeper. A savage, but often comic indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, Bleak House is one of Dickens' most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing-rooms of the aristocracy to the London slums."

Webster, Jean "Daddy Longlegs"

Webster, Jean "Daddy Longlegs" - 1912

A favourite classic book for everyone who was lucky enough to read it at the time. I must have read this first in German because I remember reading it at a time where it was impossible to get any books in English - apart from a few classics we had to read in school.

I loved the book from the beginning and have read it again and again. A wonderful story about an orphan who gets the chance to get a higher education because a rich man is willing to pay for it. His only condition is that she writes a letter to him about her life once a month.

And so we are able to read a beautiful epistolary novel with lots of wonderful letters from Judy to her benefactor about the life of an orphan who goes to school and who grows up. She has never seen this man who pays for everything in her life, only has did she see him disappear and noticed he had very long legs, so in want of his real name, she calls him "Daddy Longlegs" henceforth.

A lovely novel for anyone who likes Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Little Women and similar writings. Also a novel for readers from all ages.

Since the book is more than a hundred years old, it is free on Gutenberg.com. It has also been made into many different movies over the time.

From the back cover:

"Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by the American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, a young girl named Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, through her college years. She writes the letters to her benefactor, a rich man whom she has never seen.

Jerusha Abbott was brought up at the John Grier Home, an old-fashioned orphanage. The children were wholly dependent on charity and had to wear other people's cast-off clothes. Jerusha's unusual first name was selected by the matron off a gravestone (she hates it and uses "Judy" instead), while her surname was selected out of the phone book. At the age of 15, she finished her education and is at loose ends, still working in the dormitories at the institution where she was brought up.

One day, after the asylum's trustees have made their monthly visit, Judy is informed by the asylum's dour matron that one of the trustees has offered to pay her way through college. He has spoken to her former teachers and thinks she has potential to become an excellent writer. He will pay her tuition and also give her a generous monthly allowance. Judy must write him a monthly letter, because he believes that letter-writing is important to the development of a writer. However, she will never know his identity; she must address the letters to Mr. John Smith, and he will never reply."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2026.

Swarup, Vikas "Q & A"

Swarup, Vikas "Q & A" - 2005

This book proves it again. Never judge a book by its cover. Or its movie. Or the description of the movie. After all the upheaval about the movie (Slumdog Millionaire), I thought this was just another chick lit, the way it was described it was an "easy" read, a "beach" read, whatever you might want to call it if you say there is really nothing in it that's worth touching.

This was not at all what I expected. Yes, a little Indian waiter wins an immense amount of money and is put into jail for it. But the story is so much more. For every single correct answer there is a story why the boy knew it even though he grew up in the slums. So we learn one question after the next about the life, not just of young Ram Mohammad Thomas but about many other people living in India, especially the poor ones.

A book well worth reading. Yes, it is an easy read but with a lot of content, funny and tragic at the same time, lovely and heart-breaking.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2026.

From the back cover: 

"Eighteen-year-old Ram Mohammad Thomas is in prison after answering twelve questions correctly on a TV quiz show to win one billion rupees. The producers have arrested him, convinced that he has cheated his way to victory. Twelve extraordinary events in street-kid Ram's life - how he was found in a dustbin by a priest; came to have three names; fooled a professional hitman; even fell in love - give him the crucial answers. In his warm-hearted tale lies all the comedy, tragedy, joy and pathos of modern India."

Dickens, Charles "Hard Times"

Dickens, Charles "Hard Times" - 1854

I think I mentioned before that I love Dickens even though I haven't read all that many of his novels. I decided it was time to devour his next novel and happened upon "Hard Times". My first thought was, that could be the title of any of his novels. And I still think I was right there.

Anyway, Charles Dickens is one of the best authors that ever lived. He manages to describe people, their traits and personalities, the interaction between them, their lot in life, he does all that just wonderfully and still it sounds like it was the most normal thing in the world. As most of my friends know,  I do prefer large books, this was not THAT large but it had all the components and told a great story. Another tale of how different lives were for the rich and the poor, how hard it was to get through life if you were not born on the lucky side. And still, there is so much humour in this story, The characters are all brilliant. Every single one of them is so special, some of them quite warm hearted, others not so much.

I really enjoyed reading this story and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys classic novels and maybe even for a starter novel for those who pretend not to enjoy them.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2026.

From the back cover:

"Hard Times is both a tragic story of human oppression and a dazzling work of political satire. It depicts Coketown, a typical red-brick industrial city of the north. In its schools and factories children and adults are caged and enslaved, with no personal freedom until their spirit is broken. Against this social backdrop where harsh regimes are enforced by the likes of Josiah Bounderby, the pompous self-made man, and Gradgrind, the censorious disciplinarian, the personal tragedies of Louisa Gradgrind and Stephen Blackpool are played out. Despite its vivid portrait of the horrors of the newly mechanized society, Hard Times is shot through with a wit, good humour and a conviction that entertainment is essential for human happiness, making it one of the most uplifting of Dickens's novels."

Read about the other Dickens' novels I read here.

Doerr, Anthony "All the Light We Cannot See"

Doerr, Anthony "All the Light We Cannot See" - 2014

The last couple of years, I have read the latest Pulitzer Prize winner and have usually been very happy with them. So, I had to read this one, as well. And it has not disappointed me.

Anthony Doerr managed to write a different kind of war story, a story about the little people, on either side of the war, those that had not much to say about what was happening to them and who paid the highest price. He tells the story of a German orphan boy and a blind French girl who both suffer from what happened, who were probably not even in school when the election in Germany decided about their fate and who had to pay the highest price.

The story is fascinating, the writing is careful yet beautiful, the characters are described in a loving way. This is one of the books that you would like to read as slow as possible because you hope it will never end. Because, even though you hope for a good ending, you fear for a bad one.

I wish there would be more books written like this because it might teach the people of today what it might have been like to live in Germany during that time, that not all Germans were Nazis and that even those who were often had no choice.

A brilliant book that I would recommend to anyone.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"The epic new novel, set during WW2, from Sunday Times Short Story Prize-winner Anthony Doerr.
Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds a perfect miniature of their Paris neighbourhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. But when the Nazis invade, father and daughter flee with a dangerous secret.

Werner Pfennig is a German orphan, destined to labour in the same mine that claimed his father’s life, until he discovers a knack for engineering. His talent wins him a place at a brutal military academy, but his way out of obscurity is built on suffering.

At the same time, far away in a walled city by the sea, an old man discovers new worlds without ever setting foot outside his home. But all around him, impending danger closes in. And yet, it will not allow him to remain shut in forever

Doerr’s combination of soaring imagination and meticulous observation is electric. As Europe is engulfed by war and lives collide unpredictably, ‘All The Light We Cannot See’ is a captivating and devastating elegy for innocence and of how, against all odds, people try to be good to one another."

Anthony Doerr received the Pulitzer Prize for "All the Light We Cannot See" in 2016.

There were also a few books mentioned/read in the book.
Darwin, Charles "The Voyage of the 'Beagle'"
Hertz, Heinrich "The Principles of Mechanics"
Verne, Jules "Around the World in Eighty Days"
Verne, Jules "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"

Brontë, Charlotte "Villette"

Brontë, Charlotte "Villette" - 1853

I really loved this novel. As a fan of Jane Austen and someone who read all her novels and pamphlets, I am always on the lookout for more literature like hers. I think the Brontë sisters belong to the next best thing. I had not read "Villette" before and might not have come across it if I hadn't read "Becoming Jane Eyre" by Sheila Kohler.

It might be a little hard if you don't speak French because a lot of the conversations are held in French but there is a translation in the back of the book (at least in my edition but I would hope it's in all of them) and it's totally worth going through it anyway.

The novel is not just about a young girl who lost her family and has to look after herself, not easy at a time where the only decent way for women to keep alive is to get married. But Lucy is not someone who gives up easily, who gives in to her despair. She goes abroad and hopes to find something. And she gets rewarded for her courage. Her life still isn't easy but at least she knows she will not starve. And she finds some wonderful friends who stand by her.

The writing is very well done, the characters described perfectly. Apparently, Charlotte Brontë used a lot of material from her own life, so this can be seen as an autobiographical rendering of her own life in Brussels. This makes the story even more interesting.

There is only one question that gets no answer. Why is Lucy not telling anything about her family, her background? We don't learn anything about her before she turns up and is already in position where she needs to fend for herself.

There is not a lot more I can say about the book without spoiling the story for new readers. If you have read Villette and would like to talk about it, please, let me know.

If you liked "Jane Eyre", you will like this novel, as well. I will certainly read Charlotte Brontë's other novels.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Based on Charlotte Brontë's personal experience as a teacher in Brussels, Villette is a moving tale of repressed feelings and subjection to cruel circumstance and position, borne with heroic fortitude.

Rising above the frustrations of confinement within a rigid social order, it is also a story of a woman's right to love and be loved."

Or: "With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette.

There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, an initially suspicious headmaster and her own complex feelings, first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a governess in Brussels, Charlotte Brontë's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances."

Follett, Ken "Fall of Giants"

Follett, Ken "Fall of Giants" - 2010

What a book. And it's only the beginning of a trilogy. From the coal mines of Wales to the communists in Russia, from the English to the German aristocracy, from the American president to the Russian Tsar, we can see from the poor and thee rich in all these countries, how World War I happened. We can see that nothing is as black and white as the historians would like us to believe. We grow to love the characters just as much as if we would know them in real life. The interweaving of fictional with real life people makes us even believe they really exist. All these stories could have happened, they probably did happen to several people in any of these countries.

We meet a Welsh miners family, two Russian orphans, an English Earl and his family, a German diplomat, an American politician and many many more. Through their eyes we can see their fear of a looming war, what they can do or can't do to prevent it and how they have to arrange their lives to get through it.

"Fall of Giants". I would say it compares very well to "The Pillars of the Earth" and "World without End" which also belong to my favourite novels and that's why I got this one. This is just as brilliant. It is just a very different time. Europe in the twentieth century. This one takes place during WWI, the next one will be WWII and then the third the Cold War.  This way of showing history reminds me a little of Edward Rutherfurd, another favourite author of mine, who always describes the history of a country, region or city through the ages by using several fictitious families and also some real historical figures. This one is very similar. The families in the book come from Wales, England, Germany, Russia and the USA and they all have very different backgrounds, you have the feeling you are there when the war starts but you have been living through all the anxiety with the characters.

Ken Follett's style of writing is beautiful, his research into a subject astonishingly perfect. I have read a lot of books on this subject and still learned  many new details.

The only bad point of the book is that you can hardly put it down and really want to start the net one the minute you turned the last page. I was lucky to have waiting long enough until all three parts of the series are out so I don't have to wait too long until the next one.

In any case, we can all learn a lot from this book. If we didn't know it before, I'm sure everyone agrees after reading this. War is evil. Everyone loses in a war.  Let's not start another one.

The next two books, "Winter of the World" and "Edge of Eternity", will treat WWII and the Cold War respectively. Can't wait to read them.

From the back cover:

"Five families are brought together through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution and the struggle for votes for women.

It is 1911, and the coronation day of King George V.  Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams begins his first day at work in a coal mine.

The Williams family is connected by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of Gus Dewar, ambitious young aide to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. Two orphaned Russian brothers soon become involved, but Grigori and Lev Peshkov’s plan to emigrate to America fall foul of war, conscription and revolution. 

FALL OF GIANTS combines richly developed historical details with fast-moving action and powerful emotion to deliver this absorbing narrative."

Faulkner, William "Light in August"

Faulkner, William "Light in August" - 1932

What a book. This could be a follow-up to "Gone With the Wind" seventy years later. A book about the Deep South, about country life, families, hard work, racism, crime, religion, morale, everything a story about this region and time should have.

Faulkner has a brilliant way of writing, I like his style, even though he jumps around from time to time, he still follows his path and you can follow it well without any confusion. There are a few major stories with several subplots but William Faulkner manages to tell them all in a way that it's not difficult to follow. An accessible story with both likeable and non-likeable characters.

I'm not surprised he received the Pulitzer Prize for two of his works, "A Fable" and "The Reivers", both of which have gone on my wishlist.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:
https://momobookblog.blogspot.com/2025/11/faulkner-william-sound-and-fury.html
"One of William Faulkner’s most admired and accessible novels, Light in August reveals the great American author at the height of his powers. Lena Grove’s resolute search for the father of her unborn child begets a rich, poignant, and ultimately hopeful story of perseverance in the face of mortality. It also acquaints us with several of Faulkner’s most unforgettable characters, including the Reverend Gail Hightower, plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen, and Joe Christmas, a ragged, itinerant soul obsessed with his mixed-race ancestry. Powerfully entwining these characters’ stories, Light in August brings to life Faulkner’s imaginary South, one of literature’s great invented landscapes, in all of its unerringly fascinating glory."

William Faulkner received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 "for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel."

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Shields, Carol "The Stone Diaries"

Shields, Carol "The Stone Diaries" - 1993

An interesting book about an interesting life.  So far, I had only read Carol Shield's book about Jane Austen but somehow, this fiction book of hers has escaped me.

I like books with a map or a family tree in the back. This is one. I love being able to go back and forth and see who is connected to whom, where they come from, what is going to come next, even though sometimes I am annoyed that it spoils part of the book for me because I already know that someone is going to die soon or getting married etc.

Having said that, "The Stone Diaries" would be comprehensible even without that family tree. Daisy Stone Goodwill goes through many hardships in her life, being born an orphan under weird circumstances, she manages her life quite well. She is a smart woman and gets an education at a time where that is far from the norm for any woman let alone one in her circumstances.

While reading this, I often wondered how much of Carol Shields is in this fictional autobiography of Daisy Goodfellow. There is everything about life in this book, birth and death, marriage and divorce, education and work, problems with parents and children, just anything a normal life encounters.

A good read.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"The Stone Diaries is one ordinary woman's story of her journey through life. Born in 1905, Daisy Stone Goodwill drifts through the roles of child, wife, widow, and mother, and finally into her old age. Bewildered by her inability to understand her place in her own life, Daisy attempts to find a way to tell her story within a novel that is itself about the limitations of autobiography. Her life is vivid with incident, and yet she feels a sense of powerlessness. She listens, she observes, and through sheer force of imagination she becomes a witness of her own life: her birth, her death, and the troubling misconnections she discovers between. Daisy's struggle to find a place for herself in her own life is a paradigm of the unsettled decades of our era. A witty and compassionate anatomist of the human heart, Carol Shields has made distinctively her own that place where the domestic collides with the elemental. With irony and humor she weaves the strands of The Stone Diaries together in this, her richest and most poignant novel to date."

Carol Shields received the Pulitzer Prize for "The Stone Diaries" in 1995.

This is also a book about reading, a lot of books are mentioned in the novel:

Books Clarentine read:
Libby, Laura Jean "Struggle for a Heart"
Alexander, Mrs. "What Gold Cannot Buy"
Warden, Florence "At the World's Mercy"
Brontë, Charlotte "Jane Eyre"
Other books mentioned: (see below in alphabetical order, at least those that I could find)
Black Beauty, Anne of Green Gables, Freckles, Twice Told Tales, Beautiful Joe, Mill on the Floss, Pocahontas, Elizabeth and Her German Garden, Jane Eyre, The Unification of Italy, Beowulf, the Romantic Poets, In His Steps, Wild Geese, Gone With the Wind, Claudia, The First Six Years, The Grapes of Wrath, Forever Amber, The Egg and I, Cheaper by the Dozen, Lust for Life, The Web and the Rock, The Skutari Babies, Our Mutual Friend, Nellie's Memories, Helen's Saga, A Brief History of the Orkney Isles, Chekhov's Daughter, The Edible Woman, The Good Earth, Murder in the Meantime.

Alphabetical list:
Arnim, Elizabeth von "Elizabeth and Her German Garden"
Atwood, Margaret "The Edible Woman"
Brontë, Charlotte "Jane Eyre"
Buck, Pearl S. "The Good Earth"
Carey, Rosa Nouchette "Nellie's Memories"
Dickens, Charles "Our Mutual Friend"
Donnell, Susan "Pocahontas"
Eliot, George "The Mill on the Floss"
Franken, Rose "The Claudia Novels"
Gilbreth, Frank + Gilbreth Carey, Elizabeth "Cheaper by the Dozen"
Hawthorne, Nathaniel "Twice Told Tales"
MacDonald, Betty "The Egg and I"
Mitchell, Margaret "Gone With the Wind"
Montgomeray, Lucy Maud "Anne of Green Gables"
Saunders, Margaret Marshall "Beautiful Joe"
Sewell, Anna "Black Beauty"
Sheldon, Charles "In His Steps"
Steinbeck, John "The Grapes of Wrath"
Stone, Irving "Lust for Life"
Stratton-Porter, Gene "Freckles"
Winsor, Kathleen "Forever Amber"
Wolfe, Thomas "The Web and the Rock"

Austen, Jane "Emma"

Austen, Jane "Emma" - 1816
The Motherhood and Jane Austen Book Club

This was the fourth book I read with this blog and the challenge to read and discuss Jane Austen's novels with a view of the mothers in the stories.

The first three novels we discussed were "Pride & Prejudice", "Mansfield Park" and "Persuasion" which I have already reviewed earlier.

If you have not read this novel, I refer you to my more general review here because this one will contain spoilers.

I think Emma is the Jane Austen novel with the least mothers or mother figures. We have a few who take the place of mothers but the mothers themselves take a very small place in the novel. Nevertheless, there is something to be said about each one of them and how they influence the other characters.

Mothers: Mrs. Bates, Mrs. John Knightley
Mothers not present: Mrs. Woodhouse
Non-Mothers: Mrs. Weston, Mrs. Churchill

Mrs. Bates
Mrs. Bates is the mother of the very talkative Miss Bates. We don't hear much from the mother but can gather from her daughter and some other remarks what kind of destiny Mrs. Bates had. She is probably the equivalent of Mrs. Dashwood in "Sense & Sensibility" (or what Mrs. Bennett fears in "Pride & Prejudice") because she used to be rich and now is very poor. She therefore must have lost her wealth with the death of her husband whose estate and money went to a distant relative who didn't think he needed to take care of Mrs. Bates and her daughter.

She is a calm and quiet person, too old and too sick to do anything for her daughter and also has no influence on any of the other characters in the novel.

Mrs. John Knightley née Woodhouse
Emma' sister Isabella is married to Mr. John Knightley, the brother of THE Mr. Knightley. She is probably more like her father than she is like her mother, she definitely inherited his fear of catching any illness that is around. The Knightleys are a family family, very close to their children, very caring for them but that's about all we hear from them.

Mrs. Woodhouse
Mrs. Woodhouse, mother of Emma and Isabella, is Mr. Woodhouse's late wife. Her early death might have influenced his hypochondria but I am sure there were some hints of it already there before her demise.

Would Emma have been a different person had her mother been alive? Probably. Since we don't know much about her, we can only assume that she might have been a little stricter than her father who is over-afraid of losing her to anything or than her governess who seems to have been more like a friend than a parent.

Mrs. Weston née Taylor
At the beginning of the novel, Miss Taylor, Emma's governess of many years, marries Mr. Weston, a "man of means". We don't really see her working at Highbury, the Woodhouses' residence, but the families visit each other and there are several discussions with Mr. Knightley about Emma. From that we can get a good idea how she treated Emma and that her indulgences have led Emma to become a young lady who thinks the world of herself and that she knows everything. Mrs. Weston has become the surrogate mother to Emma although she was a little indulgent with her and functioned more like a friend, she loves her as much as a daughter and Emma loves Mrs. Weston as much as a mother but I don't think she did Emma a great service in raising her without any strictness at all.

Mrs. Churchill
Mr. Weston, who marries Miss Taylor, Emma's governess, has a son. When his wife died, Frank was still very little and so his wife's childless brother and his wife raised him. Mrs. Churchill seems to be a very demanding mother, she relies on Frank a lot and won't let him go to visit his father, even for his wedding.
Is she a good mother? Well, she took in her husband's nephew but that was something that a lot of people did at the time, even one of Jane Austen's own brothers grew up in another family. She surely comes around as being very selfish because Frank has to hide his love to Jane Fairfax and can only marry her after Mrs. Churchill dies. Since we never really get to meet her in person, only hear her talked about by those people who would like to see Frank more often, we can only judge her by the negative vibes we get from her acquaintances.

All in all, not many mothers in this novel but still some that have a huge influence on the story.

From the back cover:

"'I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like,' Jane Austen wrote, but young Emma Woodhouse, in spite of her weaknesses, has charmed generations of readers. Bossy, a little spoilt, and too eager to control other's lives for what she believes is their own good, she creates misunderstandings with every tactic she employs. But when her attempts to match-make go awry, she learns a hard lesson about life, love, and growing up. The world's greatest works of literature are now available in beautiful keepsake volumes. Bound in real cloth, and featuring gilt edges and ribbon markers, these beautifully produced books are a wonderful way to build a handsome library of classic literature. These are the essential novels that belong in every home. They'll transport readers to imaginary worlds and provide excitement, entertainment, and enlightenment for years to come. All of these novels feature attractive illustrations and have an unequalled period feel that will grace the library, the bedside table or bureau."

This was the fourth book I read with this blog and the challenge to read and discuss Jane Austen's novels with a view of the mothers in the stories.

Other Jane Austen novels I have read with regard to Motherhood:
"Emma" - 1816
"Mansfield Park" - 1814
"Northanger Abbey" - 1818
"Persuasion" - 1817
"Pride & Prejudice" - 1813
"Sense & Sensibility" - 1811

Find a link to all my Jane Austen reviews here.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

Montgomery, L. M. "Anne of Green Gables"

Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud) "Anne of Green Gables" - 1908

Can you believe that I have never read Anne of Green Gables? Of course, I have heard of it. But it was not a very well known book in Germany when I was little, at least I don't think so, and later I didn't really come across it, either. But I have a couple of Canadian friends who often asked me whether I have read the book or not. And I always had to say "no". So,I thought it was time to read it.

I don't think I have to tell many people about the book. An orphan girl is taken in by a childless couple and she really loves both her new parents as well as the school and the neighbours and everything but still gets into a lot of trouble all the time. The novel is both humorous as well as serious.

A good book for children of all ages but I am sure everyone enjoys rereading it as an adult, as well. I definitely enjoyed reading it as an adult for the first time.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Everyone's favorite redhead, the spunky Anne Shirley, begins her adventures at Green Gables, a farm outside Avonlea, Prince Edward Island. When the freckled girl realizes that the elderly Cuthberts wanted to adopt a boy instead, she begins to try to win them and, consequently, the reader, over."

Tartt, Donna "The Goldfinch"

Tartt, Donna "The Goldfinch" - 2013

I haven't read any of Donna Tartt's books before even though her name was known to me and her books turned up on different lists that I liked. So many books, so little time, that is my only excuse.

So, I was happy when my online Pulitzer Prize book club decided to read the latest award winner, this one, "The Goldfinch".

Apparently, it took the author seven years to write this enormous book, stretching over 770 pages in the hardcover and 880 in the paperback edition. For someone like me, who loves a chunky book, that is just the right size. It spans over two continents and more than a decade and describes the trials and tribulations of a boy who grows up under extraordinary conditions. The protagonist of this book is not just thirteen year old Theo Decker but also a painting by Carel Fabritius, a student of Rembrandt and teacher of Vermeer, quite a biography. This also makes it a great book about art and how to understand it but that is just a side effect. One of many.

The book is a wonderful account of friendship and endurance. But it isn't a "happy" book, lots of difficulties occur in Theo's life. It is as much a dark book as an uplifting one. As usual, I try not to give away too much about the contents of the novel but would like to encourage everyone to pick up this book and read it. It's worth it.

It is beautifully written, I really liked the language, it's a brilliant story with memorable characters, each and every one of them could have been the hero of the story and each and every one of them has quite an influence on Theo.

We also have almost every topic in this novel, family, friendship, love, hate, life, death, feelings, remorse, guilt, redemption, you name it, it's probably in it. What I especially liked was the philosophical side, the pondering about the meaning of life. I think that is what impressed me most.

Quotes from the book:
"But depression wasn't the word. This was a plunge encompassing sorrow and revulsion far beyond the personal: a sick, drenching nausea at all humanity and human endeavor from the dawn of time. The writhing loathsomeness of the biological order. Old age, sickness, death. No escape for anyone. Even the beautiful ones were like soft fruit about to spoil. And yet somehow people still kept fucking and breeding and popping out new fodder for the grave, producing more and more new beings to suffer like this was some kind of redemptive, or good, or even somehow morally admirable thing: dragging more innocent creatures into the lose-lose game. Squirming babies and plodding, complacent, hormone-drugged moms. Oh, isn’t he cute? Awww. Kids shouting and skidding in the playground with no idea what future Hells awaited them: boring jobs and ruinous mortgages and bad marriages and hair loss and hip replacements and lonely cups of coffee in an empty house and a colostomy bag at the hospital. Most people seemed satisfied with the thin decorative glaze and the artful stage lighting that, sometimes, made the bedrock atrocity of the human predicament look somewhat more mysterious or less abhorrent …"
and
"... I don't care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able to persuade me that life is some awesome, rewarding treat. Because, here's the truth: life is catastrophe. The basic fact of existence - of walking around trying to feed ourselves and find friends and whatever else we do - is catastrophe. Forget all this ridiculous 'Our Town' nonsense everyone talks: the miracle of a newborn babe, the joy of one simple blossom, Life You Are Too Wonderful To Grasp, &c. For me -- and I'll keep repeating it doggedly till I die, till I fall over on my ungrateful nihilistic face and am too weak to say it: better never born, than born into this cesspool. Sinkhole of hospital beds, coffins, and broken hearts. No release, no appeal, no 'do-overs' to employ a favored phrase of Xandra's, no way forward but age and loss, and no way out but death. ..."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld.

As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate."

Donna Tartt received the Pulitzer Prize for "The Goldfinch" in 2014.