A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith | Book Review
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith Genres: American Literature, Fiction Original Publication Date: 1943 Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Find the Author: Website, Goodreads, Amazon A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is an American classic about a young girl’s coming-of-age at the turn of the twentieth century. From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harsh life of Williamsburg demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family’s erratic and eccentric behavior—such as her father Johnny’s taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy’s habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce—no one,…
Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp | Book Review
Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp Genres: Memoir Original Publication Date: 1996 Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Find the Author: Goodreads, Amazon 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…
Heronfield by Dorothy Balchin (2012) | Book Review
Heronfield by Dorinda Balchin Genres: British Literature, Fiction, History Original Publication Date: 2012 Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Find the Author: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon 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 the final victory: Tony, a young man barely in his twenties who experiences the horror of Britain’s first defeat and offers his unique…
Frost In May by Antonia White | Book Review
Frost in May by Antonia White Genres: British Literature, Fiction, Religion Original Publication Date: Originally published in 1933. Republished by Virago Books in 1978. Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Find the Author: Website, Goodreads, Amazon In Frost in May, 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…
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 | 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 Genres: Biography, Non-Fiction Original Publication Date: 2005 Source: I purchased this book Goodreads Find the Author: Website, Twitter, Goodreads, Amazon 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…
