
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew

Saturday, August 22, 2009
The Second Mrs. Darcy by Elizabeth Aston

As you can see I am very happy with reading books by Mrs. Aston. She has a great way of bringing her characters to life while not traveling far from the Darcy’s. This was my third book in the Everything Austen Challenge.
Octavia Darcy was Mr. Darcy’s second wife – Christopher Darcy – a cousin of The Darcy’s. Upon his death she decides to head back to
ded. In
Just when it seems her future is looking up, a snag in her hopes becomes known. We are revisited by the spiteful George Warren (From the Exploits and Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy), who is out to make Octavia’s life miserable while increasing his fortune. Luckily she has a very important man on her side, Lord Rutherford. Though they met on some very unreasonable and not so nice terms, he helps her through this match with
Again, the ending was expected but the twists and turns made it well worth the read. I was very satisfied with this book and would love to make it part of my home collection.
The Darcy Connection by Elizabeth Aston

This was my second book in the Everything Austen challenge. In Pride and Prejudice,
to accompany her sister to
As with most of the novels I have read my Mrs. Aston, the endings are very nearly the same but it’s the meat of the book that makes it so interesting. I knew what would happen but there are always some twists and turns that keep you guessing if it really WILL happen or if you will be left startled that something else did.
I was very happy with the ending if this book and looked forward to reading the next one on my list for this challenge.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Back
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
MIA for a bit
Saturday, July 25, 2009
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
This was my first book in the Civil War Challenge (remember I modified it since I started it 6 months behind schedule). I have mixed feelings about the book as of now. I certainly enjoyed reading about the American solider in battle and what he feels and thinks, but at the same time I had a hard time really getting into it. 
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The Exploits and Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy by Elizabeth Ashton
This was my first book in the Everything Austen Challenge. It was a great book! I had previously read Elizabeth Ashton's book "Mr. Darcy's Daughters" and loved it. Though I found that one to be a bit difficult to get into, this one hooked me with page one. I had found Alethea to be rather vibrant and appealing in the first novel and was eager to read all about her in a book dedicated entirely to herself.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Murder of a Medici Princess by Caroline P. Murphy
I was excited for this book until I saw that it was a bibliography. I am not a fan of them but decided I would give it a go. At first it was great reading; I was intrigued and excited to learn about Isabella Medici. However, as the book wore on it became less about her and more about her male relatives. Mainly her husband Paolo Giordano Orsini and her eldest brother Francesco Medici.Isabella as a person also intrigued me. She maintained her independence even though she was married to a prince from
As you can see the beginning of the book delighted me. However, after her father’s death, my interest began to waver. There was a lot of talk about battles and wars and diplomacy. The book needs these particulars in order to allow the reader to understand the world in which Isabella lived in, but they did not keep my attention. I struggled to finish and skipped over many parts that did not catch my eye.
Towards the end it picks back up as the deaths of Isabella and her best friend, and sister in law, Leonora are discussed. Both were murdered (hence the title of the book), though the exact details are not known.
All in all it was a fairly good book and I give it 3 pens.
Friday, July 3, 2009
100 books read
Instructions:
Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen -X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien -X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - (on my list)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling -
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee -X
6 The Bible- X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - X
Total: 7
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy -
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller -
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare -
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien -
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger -
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger-
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
Total: 1
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell -X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy -
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams -
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky -
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck -X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll- X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame-X
Total: 5
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy -
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens-
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis -
34 Emma-Jane Austen - X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen -X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis -
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini -
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden -
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - X
Total: 3
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell -
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving-
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery- X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood -
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan- (on my list)
Total: 3
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel-
52 Dune - Frank Herbert-
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons-
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen-X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens -X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley -
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon-
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
Total: 2
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck -X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov-
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold -
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas-
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac -
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding-
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville -X
Total: 2
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens-X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker-
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce-
76 The Inferno – Dante - X
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray- (on my list)
Total: 3
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell-
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker-
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro-
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert -X
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White - X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom -
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle-
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Total: 3
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad -
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery -
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams-
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas -
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare -X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl -X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo-
Total: 2
Total: 31