Rhys, Jean "Wide Sargasso Sea"

Rhys, Jean "Wide Sargasso Sea" - 1966

Same as "Becoming Jane Eyre", I read this when our book club decided to read "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë this year, just as I had reread it a couple of months ago.

"Wide Sargasso Sea" is considered a "prequel" to "Jane Eyre", what happened to Mr. Rochester in his first marriage in the Caribbean, how did the marriage come about and how did it end up in such a dreadful way.

Jean Rhys was born in Dominica, so she knows quite something about life in the "West Indies". I really enjoyed learning about the people there at that time. Even though you know where it all leads (if you have read "Jane Eyre"), it still is a very exciting tale of love and love lost, different cultures clashing, highly recommendable.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Her grand attempt to tell what she felt was the story of Jane Eyre's 'madwoman in the attic', Bertha Rochester, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea is edited with an introduction and notes by Angela Smith in Penguin Classics.

Born into the oppressive, colonialist society of 1930s Jamaica, white Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent beauty and sensuality. After their marriage, however, disturbing rumours begin to circulate which poison her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is inexorably driven towards madness, and her husband into the arms of another novel's heroine. This classic study of betrayal, a seminal work of postcolonial literature, is Jean Rhys's brief, beautiful masterpiece.
Jean Rhys (1894-1979) was born in Dominica. Coming to England aged 16, she drifted into various jobs before moving to Paris, where she began writing and was 'discovered' by Ford Madox Ford. Her novels, often portraying women as underdogs out to exploit their sexualities, were ahead of their time and only modestly successful. From 1939 (when Good Morning, Midnight was written) onwards she lived reclusively, and was largely forgotten when she made a sensational comeback with her account of Jane Eyre's Bertha Rochester, Wide Sargasso Sea, in 1966."  

Alphabet Book Challenge

Alphabet Book Challenge - 26 Books

A book for each letter, a book that has a main character or key supporting character (not some random minor character mentioned twice!) whose name starts with that letter. It doesn't have to be the title of the book, just the name. Ex: Alice (in Wonderland), Bella (Twilight), Cathy (Wuthering Heights), Dracula (Dracula) Estella (Great Expectations), etc.

Only one letter per book, any book, any length - short stories, books of the Bible, etc. they all count for this one.

A: Anne Elliot - "Persuasion" by Jane Austen

B: Blanca Trueba - "The House of the Spirits" by Isabel Allende

C: Christabel LaMotte - "Possession" by A.S. Byatt

D: Dorothea Brooks - "Middlemarch" by George Eliot 

E: Elizabeth Bennett - "Pride & Prejudice" by Jane Austen

F: Fanny Price - "Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen

G: Gwendolyn Fairfax - "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde

H: Helen Graham - "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Brontë

I: Iphigenia - "Iphigenia in Tauris" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

J: Jo March - "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott

K: Kiki Belsey from "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith

L: Lidie Newton - "The All-true Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton" by Jane Smiley

M: Mirah Lapidoth - "Daniel Deronda" by George Eliot 

N: Natasha Rostova - "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy

O: Orleanna Price - "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver 

P: Pelagia Iannis "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" by Louis de Bernières

Q: Queen Elizabeth - "The Uncommon Reader" by Alan Bennett

R: Rachel Verinder - "The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins

S: Scarlett O'Hara - "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell

T: Tess Durbeyfield - "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" by Thomas Hardy

U: Úrsula Iguarán - "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez

V: Vianne Rocher - "Chocolat" by Joanne Harris

W: Wilma - "Where's Wally/Waldo?" by Martin Handford

X: Xayide - "The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende (not really THE main character but I couldn't find anyone else)

Y: (There certainly must be characters starting with Y, only, I haven't read those books. If I come across them one day, I'll add them to my list.)

Z: Zosia Król - "The Children's War" by J.N. Stroyar

International Book Club Top 10 Books

International Book Club Top 10 Books

Since 2001, we've had our international book club, since 2002 we have been rating the books we read at the end of our reading year. Here are the top 10 lists of those years:

Top 10 * 2010/2011

1. November: Lee, Harper "To Kill a Mockingbird" --- 4.13

2. June: Hosseini, Khaled "A Thousand Splendid Suns" --- 4.09

3. May: Hirsi Ali, Ayaan "Nomad" --- 4.00

4. August: Falcones, Ildefonso "Cathedral of the Sea" --- 3.89

5. January: Zusak, Markus "The Book Thief" --- 3.85

6. April: Mortenson, Greg "Stones into Schools" --- 3.75

7. March: Hamsun, Knut "Pan" --- 3.73

8. October: Shaffer, Mary Ann & Barrows, Annie "The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society" --- 3.70

9. September: Abdolah, Kader "The House of the Mosque" --- 3.44

10. December: Müller, Herta "The appointment" --- 2.91

11. February: Tekin, Latife "Swords of Ice" --- 2.81

Top 10 * 2009/2010

1. Buck, Pearl S. "The Good Earth" --- 3.95

2. Dallaire, Roméo "Shake Hands With The Devil" --- 3.67

3. Mercier, Pascal "Night Train to Lisbon" --- 3.57

4. Griffin, John Howard "Black like me" --- 3.36

5. Gruen, Sara "Water for Elephants" --- 3.24

6. Lamb, Wally "The Hour I First Believed" --- 3.20

7. Moore, Christopher "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff" --- 3.00

8. Woolf, Virginia "To the Lighthouse" --- 2.75

9. Troyanov, Ilija "The Collector of Worlds" --- 2.50

10. Wisner, Franz "How the World Makes Love" --- 2.47

Top 10 * 2008/2009

1. Mortenson, Greg "Three Cups of Tea” --- 4.07

2. Cather, Willa "My Ántonia”"--- 4.00

3. Steinbeck, John "The Grapes of Wrath" --- 3.73

4. Lawson, Mary "The Other Side of the Bridge" --- 3.71

5. Picoult, Jodi "My Sister's Keeper" --- 3.44

6. Albom, Mitch "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" --- 3.438

7. Arnold, Gaynor "Girl in a Blue Dress" --- 3.42

8. Boyne, John "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" --- 3.20

9. Stone, Irving "The Agony and the Ecstasy" --- 3.00

10. García Márquez, Gabriel "Love in the Time of Cholera" --- 2.90

11. Lessing, Doris "The Golden Notebook" --- 1.33

Top 10 * 2007/2008

1. Hosseini, Khaled "The Kite Runner" --- 3.94

2. Hirsi Ali, Ayaan "Infidel: My Life" --- 3.75

2. Zweig, Stefanie "Nowhere in Africa" --- 3.75

4. McCall Smith, Alexander "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" --- 3.69

5. Urquhart, Jane "The Stone Carvers" --- 3.64

5. Haddon, Mark "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" --- 3.64

7. Edwards, Kim "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" --- 3.47

8. Pollock, David C., & Van Reken, Ruth "Third Culture Kids" --- 3.09

9. Mann, Thomas "Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family" (Buddenbrooks) --- 3.00

9. Moggach, Deborah "Tulip Fever" --- 3.00

10. Buruma, Ian "Murder in Amsterdam" --- 2.80

Top 10 * 2006/2007

1. Ruíz Zafón, Carlos "The Shadow of the Wind” --- 4.18

2. Mosse, Kate "Labyrinth” --- 4.00

3. Noor Al-Hussein, Queen of Jordan "A Leap of Faith" --- 3.92

4. Waltari, Mika "The Dark Angel” --- 3.73

5. Wiesel, Elie "Night” --- 3.35

6. Eliot, George "Middlemarch” --- 3.30

7. Sobel, Dava "Galileo's Daughter” --- 3.25

8. Mason, Daniel "The Piano Tuner" --- 3.08

8. Bender, Sue "Plain and Simple" --- 3.08

9. Gavalda, Anna "Hunting and Gathering” --- 3.07

11. Lewycka, Marina "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" --- 3.00

Top 10 * 2005/06

1. Fredriksson, Marianne "Hanna's Daughters" --- 4.27

2. Golden, Arthur "Memoirs of a Geisha" --- 3.93

3. Tolstoy, Leo "Anna Karenina" --- 3.86

4. Waltari, Mika "The Egyptian" --- 3.82

5. Shakib, Siba "Afghanistan: Where God only Comes to Weep” --- 3.40

6. Austen, Jane "Persuasion" --- 3.39

7. Pearson, Allison "I Don't Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother" --- 3.00

7. Niffenegger, Audrey "The Time Traveler's Wife" --- 3.00

9. Noble, Elizabeth "The Reading Group" --- 2.60

10. Dostoewsky, Fyodor "The Adolescent" --- 2.30

11. White, Colin & Boucke, Laurie "The UnDutchables" --- 2.25

Top 10 * 2004/05

1. Lamb, Christina "The Sewing Circles of Herat" --- 4.00

2. Kidd, Sue Monk "The Secret Life of Bees" --- 3.90

3. Ghosh, Amitav "The Glass Palace" --- 3.83

4. de Loo, Tessa "The Twins" --- 3.79

5. Nichols, Peter "A Voyage for Madmen" --- 3.33

6. Lewis, Oscar "Children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family” --- 3.17

7. Cullen, Bill "It's a long way from Penny Apples" --- 2.80

8. McCall Smith, Alexander "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" --- 2.69

9. MacDonald, Ann-Marie "The Way the Crow Flies" --- 2.30

10. Munro, Alice "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" --- 2.21

11. Glover, Douglas "Elle" --- 2.00

Top 10 * 2003/04

1. Lawson, Mary "Crow Lake" --- 4.31

2. Turner, Nancy E. "These is my Words" --- 4.08

3. Sawyer, Anh Vu “Song of Saigon” --- 3.81

4. Landvik, Lorna "Welcome to The Great Mysterious" --- 3.70

5. Clinton, Hillary Rodham "Living History" --- 3.67

6. Wharton, Edith "The House of Mirth" --- 2.93

7. Mulisch, Harry "The Discovery of Heaven" --- 2.89

8. Chabon, Michael "Summerland" --- 2.75

9. Syal, Meera "Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee" --- 2.42

10. Leapman, Michael "The Ingenious Mr. Fairchild" --- 2.00

Top 10 * 2002/03

1. Kingsolver, Barbara "Prodigal Summer" --- 4.38

2. Eliot, George "Daniel Deronda" --- 4.33

3. Tademy, Lalita "Cane River" --- 4.00

4. Harris, Joanne "Five Quarters of the Orange" --- 3.57

5. Fuller, Alexandra "Don't let's go to the dogs tonight" --- 3.29

6. van Loon, Karel "A Father's Affair" --- 3.00

7. Soueif, Ahdaf "The Map of Love" --- 2.75

8. McEwan, Ian "Atonement" --- 2.67

9. Lanchester, John "The Debt to Pleasure" --- 1.40

9. Krasnow, Iris "The Surrendering to Motherhood: Losing Your Mind, Finding Your Soul" --- 1.40

Top 10 * 2001/02

This was our first year and we did not vote on these books (which we read in the following order).

Milton, Giles "Nathaniel's Nutmeg"

Letts, Billie "Where the Heart is"

Kingsolver, Barbara "The Poisonwood Bible"

Chevalier, Tracy "Girl with a Pearl Earring"

Vreeland, Susan "Girl in Hyacinth Blue"

MacDonald, Ann-Marie "Fall on Your Knees"

Wells, Rebecca "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood"

Wells, Rebecca "Little Altars Everywhere"

Tan, Amy "The Joy Luck Club"

Woolfolk Cross, Donna "Pope Joan"

Ishiguro, Kazuo "When we were orphans"

Mistry, Rohinton "A Fine Balance"

Kohler, Sheila "Becoming Jane Eyre"

Kohler, Sheila "Becoming Jane Eyre" - 2009

An interesting novel based on the life of  Charlotte Brontë, especially while writing "Jane Eyre". The author transports us back into the time the book was written and shows how it grows with  Charlotte Brontë's experiences. But Sheila Kohler also addresses the problems of her sisters and the whole family.

As always when I read novels about this period, I am made aware of the chances women had it that society. None. And that must have been especially hard for intelligent women. This still is one of my favourite period and place of literature, England in the 19th century, there is something to it, despite all the negative sides it has.

Anyway, the novel was well written, obviously well researched. I hadn't come across the name of the author before, only found it because of the title, especially when I was sure it is NOT one of those dreadful "sequels" that people write hundreds of years later.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"The year is 1846. In a cold parsonage on the gloomy Yorkshire moors, a family seems cursed with disaster. A mother and two children dead. A father sick, without fortune, and hardened by the loss of his two most beloved family members. A son destroyed by alcohol and opiates. And three strong, intelligent young women, reduced to poverty and spinsterhood, with nothing to save them from their fate. Nothing, that is, except their remarkable literary talent. So unfolds the story of the Brontë sisters. At its centre are Charlotte and the writing of Jane Eyre. Delicately unraveling the connections between one of fiction's most indelible heroines and the remarkable woman who created her, Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre will appeal to fans of historical fiction and, of course, the millions of readers who adore Jane Eyre."

There is a very good "prequel" to "Jane Eyre", though: Rhys, Jean “Wide Sargasso Sea”

Levine, James A. "Move a Little, Lose a Lot"

Levine, James A. "Move a Little, Lose a Lot: New N.E.A.T. Science Reveals How to Be Thinner, Happier, and Smarter " - 2009

An interesting book about how to lose weight and live healthier simply by moving more. I knew that before and I doubt that so many people will follow the advice because I think they knew that before, too.

From the back cover:
"Dr. James Levine, one of the country’s top specialists in obesity, says America suffers from 'sitting disease.' We spend nearly ten to fifteen hours of our day sitting–in cars, at our desks, and in front of the television. The age of electronics and the Internet has robbed us of the chance to burn up to 1,500 to 2,000 calories per day, leaving Americans less active (and much heavier) than we were thirty years ago. We are facing a human energy crisis.

What you need, according to this doctor’s orders, is to get moving, or nonexercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). NEAT is as simple as standing, turning, and bending. Research proves that daily NEAT activity burns more calories than a half hour running on the treadmill. Just by the very act of standing and moving, you can boost your metabolism, lower your blood pressure, and increase your mental clarity. It’s about using your body as it was meant to be used. Move a Little, Lose a Lot gives you literal step-by-step instructions for small changes that equal radical results:

• Give at the office - burn 2,100 calories a week just by changing your daily work routine.
• Hey, Einstein - just like the scientist who thought up his most famous theory while riding his bike, you can increase production of new brain neurons in as little as three hours.
• Tired of being tired - reduce fatigue by 65 percent with low-intensity NEAT workouts.
• Don’t forget - an Italian study showed active men and women were 30 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. "

MacLachlan, Patricia - Sarah, Plain & Tall

MacLachlan, Patricia - Sarah, Plain & Tall Series


"Sarah, Plain & Tall" - 1986
"Skylark" - 1997
"Caleb's Story" - 2001
"More Perfect Than the Moon" - 2004

Patricia MacLachlan has written a nice story about a family during the late 19th century. They have to deal with all the troubles that come along living in the US prairie at the time. After Anna's mother dies in childbirth, she and her brother Caleb grow up with their father in Kansas. He writes for a mail-order bride and Sarah from Maine answers it. She comes to stay with them - for a trial period.

I liked all four of those books and I think they are nice reads, supposed to be for any children aged 8-10 but I think they are especially suited for little girls.

The story has also been turned into some nice movies, starring Glenn Close and Christopher Walken, a very good cast.

From the back covers:

"Their mother died the day after Caleb was born. Their house on the prairie is quiet now, and Papa doesn't sing anymore. Then Papa puts an ad in the paper, asking for a wife, and he receives a letter from one Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton, of Maine. Papa, Anna, and Caleb write back. Caleb asks if she sings. Sarah decides to come for a month. She writes Papa: I will come by train. I will wear a yellow bonnet. I am plain and tall, and Tell them I sing. Anna and Caleb wait and wonder. Will Sarah be nice? Will she like them? Will she stay?"
(Sarah Plain & Tall)

"This tale of a family trying to survive on their farm in the mid-west charts the lives of Anna, Caleb, Papa and their new stepmother, Sarah one long, hot summer when the lack of rain finally drives Sarah and the children to Maine."
(Skylark)

"Caleb′s Story continues the saga begun by the Newbery Medal-winning Sarah, Plain And Tall and its sequel, Skylark, spinning a tale of love, forgiveness, and the ties that bind a family together."
(Caleb's Story)

"Cassie spends her days watching Grandfather and Caleb in the barn, looking out at Papa working the fields, spying on her mother, Sarah, feeding the goslings. She's an observer, a writer, a storyteller. Everything is as it should be. But change is inevitable, even on the prairie. Something new is expected, and Sarah says it will be the perfect gift. Cassie isn't so sure. But just as life changes, people change too. And Cassie learns that unexpected surprises can bring great joy."
(More Perfect Than the Moon)

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

Raittila, Hannu "Canal Grande"

Raittila, Hannu "Canal Grande" (Finnish: Canal Grande) - 2001

I don't think I would have ever found this book if it wasn't for Bookcrossing. You know, the site that "encourages readers to read, register, and release books for others to enjoy." Great idea because I would have missed a good laugh.

A group of Finnish scientists is going to Venice in order to prevent it from sinking. The Finnish and Italian mentality and … uhm … work ethic clash, to say the least.

A funny, totally absurd novel, partly chaotic, partly incredibly hilarious. I loved it. If you want to find out more about the people from that small Scandinavian country, read this book.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"What happens when a group of five Finnish experts travel to Venice as part of a UNESCO project to try to save the the town from sinking?

Well, a lot of nonsense is happening. And yet everything is also quite profound.

Hilarious, intelligent, full of allusions to literature, art and culture, 'Canal Grande' is an extraordinarily unusual novel, an entertaining engagement not only with Venice, but also with Western culture."