The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. Recommended. After reading The Mysterious Island, I wonder how much Jules Verne’s current reputation is based on 1950s and ’60s movies loosely — very loosely — adapted from his novels. In this book, there are no giant … Continue reading →
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc./Touchstone, 2003. 672 pages. Today there are still jokes about how Anne Boleyn lost her head, but life as a wife of Henry VIII was no laughing matter. In The Other … Continue reading →
The Other Woman: Stories of Two Women and a Man. Edited by Susan Koppelman. The Feminist Press, 1984. 384 pages. Susan Koppelman begins her introduction to The Other Woman with, “All the stories in this collection are about women — both wives … Continue reading →
The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod by Henry Beston. Highly recommended. In his chronicles of a year spent in a tiny house on Cape Cod’s great beach, on a dune between ocean … Continue reading →
The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley. Not recommended. As Robin McKinley hints in her Afterword, she has taken many elements associated with the Robin Hood legend to turn him into a hero for today — which makes him reluctant, pragmatic, and … Continue reading →
The Oxford Book of Short Stories ed. by V. S. Pritchett. Recommended. In his introduction to The Oxford Book of Short Stories, V. S. Pritchett discusses the short story’s “relatively new and still changing form,” an odd statement since one … Continue reading →
The Portable Dorothy Parker with an introduction by Marion Meade. New York: The Penguin Group, 2006. 656 pages. As I read The Portable Dorothy Parker, I thought of the short stories of John Cheever. Although many of their stories are set in … Continue reading →
The Prussian Officer and Other Stories by D. H. Lawrence. Edited by John Worthen with an introduction and notes by Brian Finney. Recommended. In The Prussian Officer and Other Stories, D. H. Lawrence explores in short story form the themes that dominate many … Continue reading →
The Pure and the Impure by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette with introduction by Judith Thurman. Recommended. Colette believed The Pure and the Impure was her best work. I can’t judge, not having read anything of hers but a few short stories, but this collection of her … Continue reading →
The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds. Highly recommended. In The Rapture of Canaan, Sheri Reynolds creates two memorable characters, each of whom in turn creates God in his/her own image. The first is Grandpa Herman Langston. After surviving a war that his … Continue reading →