Drinking: A Love Story | Book Review
Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp Original Publication Date: 1996 Genres: Memoir Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as “liquid armor,” a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it. Drinking: A Love Story is a book about alcoholism and about one woman’s fight to get her life back.…
Heronfield | Book Review
Heronfield by Dorinda Balchin Original Publication Date: 2012 Genres: Fiction, History Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Heronfield. Amidst the bombs and bullets, the fear and confusion, it is sometimes the battles within our hearts that leave the deepest scars. Experience a sweeping saga set in war-torn Europe during the desperate years of the Second World War. At its heart is a cast of characters who draw us into their lives from the defeat of Dunkirk to final victory: Tony, a young man barely in his twenties who experiences the horror of Britain’s first defeat and offers his unique talents to the war effort, only to find that his secret…
Frost In May | Book Review
Frost in May by Antonia White Original Publication Date: Originally published in 1933. Republished by Virago Books in 1978. Genres: Fiction, Religion Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Nanda Gray, the daughter of a Catholic convert, is nine when she is sent to the Convent of Five Wounds. Quick-witted, resilient and eager to please, she accepts this closed world where, with all the enthusiasm of the outsider, her desires and passions become only those the school permits. Her only deviation from total obedience is the passionate friendships she makes. Convent life is perfectly captured – the smell of beeswax and incense; the petty cruelties of the nuns; the eccentricities of…
February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof in Brooklyn | Book Review
February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof in Brooklyn by Sherill Tippins Original Publication Date: 2005 Genres: Biography, Non-Fiction Source: I purchased this book Goodreads February House is the uncovered story of an extraordinary experiment in communal living, one involving young but already iconic writers — and the country’s best-known burlesque performer — in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn during 1940 and 1941. It was a fevered yearlong party fueled by the appetites of youth and by the shared sense of urgency to take action as artists in the months before…
The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1: 1940-1956 | Book Review
The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1: 1940-1956 by Sylvia Plath Original Publication Date: 2017 Genres: Non-Fiction Source: I purchased this book Goodreads A major literary event: the first volume in the definitive, complete collection of the letters of Sylvia Plath—most never before seen. The Letters of Sylvia Plath includes her correspondence from her years at Smith, her summer editorial internship in New York City, her time at Cambridge, her experiences touring Europe, and the early days of her marriage to Ted Hughes in 1956. Most of the letters are previously unseen, including sixteen letters written by Plath to Hughes when they were apart after their honeymoon. This magnificent compendium…
