Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation by John Ehle. Highly recommended. In Trail of Tears, John Ehle (who is, as far as I can tell, non-Native) sketches the people and events that led to the infamous Trail of … Continue reading →
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. Not recommended. In his 1960 introduction to Tropic of Cancer, Karl Shapiro said, “I call Henry Miller the greatest living author because I think he is,” “. . . as a spiritual example he stands among the … Continue reading →
Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller. Recommended. Like Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn is part autobiography, part memoir, part polemic, part fiction, part fantasy, and part poetry, written in near stream of consciousness as Miller experiences one epiphany after another. As with the prior … Continue reading →
Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy and edited and with an introduction and notes by Simon Gatrell. Highly recommended. In Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy combines many of the elements that would define his career as a novelist — colorful common … Continue reading →
Victorian Love Stories: An Oxford Anthology edited by Kate Flint. Highly recommended. Coincidentally, I happened to read this collection of Victorian short stories focused on love relationships concurrently with a book of Victorian erotic short stories and George Eliot’s Middlemarch(set earlier in the … Continue reading →
Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery by Terry Jones, Robert Yeager, Terry Dolan, Alan Fletcher, and Juliette Dor. London: Methuen Publishing Ltd. 2003. 420 pages. Geoffrey Chaucer was justice of the peace, knight of the shire, friend of the king, and … Continue reading →
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. Highly recommended. Jean Rhys, troubled by the one-dimensional Bertha Mason in Brontë’s classic Jane Eyre, or perhaps seeing an opportunity to take the depiction of Creoles out of the hands of English writers, decided … Continue reading →
Wives and Daughters: An Every-Day Story by Elizabeth Gaskell. Introduction and notes by Pam Morris. Highly recommended. With its fairy-tale beginning (“In a country there was a shire, and in that shire there was a town, and in that town there was … Continue reading →
Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence. Highly recommended. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence is a sequel, but knowledge of The Rainbow is not necessary to appreciate the second novel. The title is somewhat misleading, as it is really about … Continue reading →
Zitkala-Sa: American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings edited with an introduction and notes by Cathy N. Davidson and Ada Norris. Highly recommended. Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin), a South Dakota Sioux (through her mother; her father was white) born in 1876, the year … Continue reading →