The Black Arrow is, without a doubt, one of my all time favorite books, just as Robert Louis Stevenson is one of my all time favorite authors. I find it hard to believe that The Black Arrow is probably the least well know of his great adventure novels (the others being, of course, Treasure Island and Kidnapped), as it is certainly the best as far as I am concerned. <p> As far as the story goes, it is one of the most entertaining plots t ...
It is twenty years after the first Musketeers saga and Athos, Aramis, Porthos and dArtagnan have all gone their separate ways. Midlife has mellowed the musketeers and definitely complicated their perceptions. Porthos has been indulging himself with his widows money and working himself up the caste ladder but is still not entirely accepted but the upper crust he wants to become. Aramis has gone into the church and, although he dreams wistfully of ...
Plague Ship contains the second Solar Queen adventure. Nortons four-book series about the trader-crew of the Solar Queen ended in 1969 with Postmarked the Stars This remarkable Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy and Nebula Grand Master just recently passed away after a long and extremely fruitful career (her first novel was published in 1934, her latest fantasy in 2005). <p> Nortons Solar Queen stories are told from the viewpoint of Dane Th ...
If you pick up Mike and Psmith and expect it to be like the wacky comedies that Wodehouse composed in the 20s and 30s, you might be slighted disappointed. This is early Wodehouse, a Wodehouse concerned with school masters, ragging (an expression for creating mischief) and especially cricket. It is also a more grounded Wodehouse, a novel where the comedy is more subtle, a novel where the characters are not quite so flighty. This is also Wodehouse ...
In The House of the Seven Gables, the author tells his reader the story is a romance. What he means by this terminology is not a cheap paperback that involves swooning hearts with Fabio on the cover, but a legend prolonging itself, from an epoch now gray in the distance, down into our own broad daylight. Hawthornes specific goal is to show that the bad behavior of one generation devolves on future descendents. He accomplishes this by examining t ...
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this at age 65 as much or more than I did as a child. It is well written and superbly crafted for a reasonable price. <p> Heidi embraces the sufferings of rejection and the rewards of genuine love.It shows that people do need each other and that we are all capable of forgiveness. I am told the story was built on real life experiences of a Swiss family. The description and characterization is excellent. At ti ...
In this volume the author has sought to lay before the reader a description of life and times lying beyond the light of history. This is indeed an extensive subject, and calls for some explanation, both as to the general design of the work and what steps have been taken to secure correct information. <p> History is a word of varied import. In general, when we talk about history, we mean those accounts of past events, times, and circumsta ...
If you have a heart, the story of Silas Marner will warm it. You are better coming to it fresh, without knowing anything of the simple yet solid plot, so I will say nothing of it. I will just urge you to read this wonderful book. Eliot writes beautifully and from page one, you realize you are in the hands of a true artist. This is a very human, very English story of simple people living through those very basic emotions that make the world turn ...
With this novel, Dickens left behind the shallow characters that sometimes marred his early works, and developed full-fledged people. Pecksniff and his daughters are marvelous creations that make one cringe with embarassment while laughing at their incredible selfishness. Tom Pinch is another character in a distinguished line of too good to be true Dickensian personalities, but he is shown to suffer and grow into a believable human being. The Am ...
