Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. Edited by Elizabeth Porges Watson. New introduction and notes by Charlotte Mitchell. ISBN 0-19-283209-3. Recommended. Not a novel, not an anthology of short stories, Cranford is perhaps best described as a cohesive series of vignettes. Recounted by a young woman … Continue reading →
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman. Highly recommended. You know the feeling — your spouse says something that strikes you the wrong way, and involuntarily you tense up. You can almost feel your blood pressure rise. … Continue reading →
Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France by Peter Mayle. New York: Random House, Inc., 2000. 240 pages. For an unexplained reason, Peter Mayle and his unnamed wife (presumably the “Jennie” of the dedication) left paradise in Provence for … Continue reading →
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton; afterword by Alfred Kazin. Highly recommended. Ethan Frome is a powerful story about powerless people. The title character is held in thrall by his parents, his land, his poverty, and his lifeless and loveless marriage. His wife, Zenobia … Continue reading →
Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil by Ron Rosenbaum. Highly recommended. Explaining Hitler is a misleading title, for the focus is primarily on the Jewish academic community’s attempts to explain Hitler — to put it in grossly oversimplified terms, … Continue reading →
Flat Rock Journal by Ken Carey. Not recommended. After reading two pages of glowing reviews (and even a comment about Carey being a successor to Thoreau), I was expecting a well-written, thoughtful book centered on nature, the forest, and the … Continue reading →
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis. Not recommended. In Founding Brothers, Joseph Ellis uses six vignettes to show how the thoughts, acts, and interactions of the leaders of the “Revolutionary Generation” reveal their uncertainty about the new republic’s ability to … Continue reading →
Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before by Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D. Simon and Schuster Free Press. New York: 2007. 304 pages. Jean Twenge’s mouthful of a subtitle says it … Continue reading →
Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History by Barbara A. Hanawalt. Not recommended. University of Minnesota history professor Barbara Hanawalt uses an array of primary sources, from court cases and Hustings Wills to contemporary books of advice, to … Continue reading →
Henry and June (from A Journal of Love: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin 1931–1932) by Anaïs Nin. Recommended. Henry and June (from A Journal of Love: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin 1931–1932) by Anaïs Nin is a portion of the writer’s famous journal from … Continue reading →