Friday, December 18, 2009

trouvée: the reader

No inscription or date, found recently on eBay. The only thing I know is that it came from Germany.

So, to round out book week, I think it is time to fill in one gaping hole: fiction (my favorite)! Joining me today is someone I feel very lucky to have spent a great deal of time with in the past year, trudging together over hill and under dale in search of beautiful places and fabulous spaces. And when you see his literary choices, I think you will understand why we get along so well.

1) Stefan of Architect Design:

* Rebecca (1938), by Daphne du Maurier
* Anna Karenina (1877), by Leo Tolstoy
* the Merry Hall series by Beverley Nichols (Merry Hall, 1951, Laughter on the Stairs, 1953, and Sunlight on the Lawn, 1956) ~ while not PURELY fiction, they read as fiction (and it's all made up anyway!)
* The Age of Innocence (1920), by Edith Wharton ~ who doesn't love this book?
* Sister Carrie (1900), by Theodore Dreiser ~ I think I read this book about 100 times through high school. It seemed so impossibly glamorous and melodramatic at the time!

2) and then there's JCB:

* Wuthering Heights (1847), by Emily Brontë, and Jane Eyre (1847), by Charlotte Brontë (it is a tie)
* The Scarlet Letter (1850), by Nathaniel Hawthorne
* Great Exprectations (1860-1861), by Charles Dickens
* A Passage to India (1924), by E.M. Forster
* Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), by Zora Neale Hurston

What a week! To everyone who participated and commented ~ thank you. I have learned one or two things! I am not sure about you all, but I am ready to curl up with a good book and maybe take a long winter's nap. I am off for a week, but before I go, I will steal a line from another favorite classic: "...but I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight, 'Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!' "

Be well. xo

11 comments:

ArchitectDesign™ said...

Happy christmas, darling! Hope you have wonderful holiday!
I love all of your choices as well! I guess it's true what they say,great minds do think alike!

Jane said...

I love all those, but have not heard of the Hurston book I will have to hunt it out. Btw are you enjoying Bess of Hardwick. What an amazing women and they were a real 'power couple' much as I loathe that word. But of course in those days political decisions could mean death! xoxo

Janet said...

AD ~ Safe travels...see you in the new year. xo

Jane ~ I am really enjoying Bess of Hardwick, but I am having a hard time staying with it. Unlike KDM and Little A, I am not much of a biography person...so I am easily distracted by those bits of fiction that find their way to my nightstand! Do hunt down Hurston's book, it is a truly extraordinary story. The vernacular language can be a bit difficult to understand, but you do get used to it.

Scott Fazzini said...

Great selections, kids. Some of my favorites: Iris Murdoch, John Irving, Sylvia Plath, Dennis Cooper, Thomas Mann, J.D. Salinger, Patricia Highsmith, and Truman Capote (Just in case you were wondering! ha ha)

home before dark said...

A good week to all and to all a good read? AD: your list is my list although Beverly Nichols I know not well. And JCB, a fellow traveler: all six are on my shelves. Nathaniel Hawthorne was my light out of darkness, showing this Sooner girl nothing is ever new under the sun. Be well and happy. With books that can be anywhere.

ArchitectDesign™ said...

I cannot claim to have found Beverly Nichols - rather - Lisa of My Bloomsbury Life sent me the first volume and I quickly got the following 2 in the series to follow up! Absolutely brilliant. HBD - you of all people would love them as they are about his working to restore his gardens and ancient georgian house in the English countryside: written in the early 1950s!

Sanity Fair said...

Good choices, all! I'm re-reading Wurthering Heights right now... the original dysfunctional family. I'm not a fan of books-made-into-movies usually, and this book is much the same. I just saw the movie version with Julia Ormand - ghastly! Thus back to the original material :)

smilla4blogs said...

Love your found photo...she reminds me of someone...can't think who...xo

Inkslinger said...

What wonderful choices! Some I love already and some I'm going to add to my must-check-out list! Love your book weeks!!

Hope you have a great Christmas!

myletterstoemily said...

i love your blog...so mysterious like a bronte novel.

also loved your reading selection. i am a fan of the same literature.

LINDA from Each Little World said...

Thank you for including me in this wonderful bounty of books! I loved being in the company of many of my favorite bloggers as well as discovering some new voices. Hope you have a well-read holiday.