As well as being a crazy lover of poetry, I am a bookworm to the extreme and will read almost anything. I think that I should be sharing the books I read with others, and maybe include recommendations and reviews. The books shown here are ones that I have read and enjoyed semi recently. I will write a little about one of them, but I can put in the titles and authors of other ones I have read. Enjoy!
Book List:
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Clothes for a Summer Hotel by Tennessee Williams
A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
What to Make of It by Pamela Harrison
Recommendation: The Portrait of a Lady
What do you do when you are headed over seas for two and half weeks with only a backpack bulging with hiking equipment and several long plane rides to look forward to? Search your bookshelves for that unread paperback with the minuscule print that you have been avoiding for one reason or another. For me, it was because my version of The Portrait of a Lady has a very unattractive cover, so I have never had reason before to pick it up and read it. Over the course of my trip, on long sunny afternoons sitting by a lake in Sweden and hiking hut to hut in Austria, this book proved that it was worth every ounce it added to the weight of my pack, because once I began reading, I could not put it down.
Henry James, though sometimes viewed as inaccessible or unappealing to those who do not like reading older literature, is a master craftsman, with a writing style that I found easy to read and thoroughly engaging. Through the character of Isabel Archer, a young American girl caught up with her time spend in England and perplexed by the direction her life is going, the reader is able to get a perfect snapshot of the time. Isabel, who ultimately makes a choice that will change her destiny, is determined to be in control of her life, even if it means sacrificing her happiness. I would recommend this book to any who are willing to stay with Isabel throughout the 500 sometimes dense pages, and to realize that sometimes the best books are those that end without a definite conclusion.
