Antiquarian and Classic Book Reviews
Jabberwocky is a little monster of a calico tabby. A very active cat, she is Hargrave’s little snicker-snack. She’s the third youngest kitten and has a very silky coat.
Hargrave adopted Jabberwocky from a shelter as a kitten. She was playful, adorable, and had big green eyes. She also didn’t sleep. After several 4AM wake-ups, Jabbers had to be trained to go to bed at a certain time. Even as an adult, she still goes to bed every night.
A valued member of the thieves guild, Jabberwocky will steal anything not nailed down. Her sister’s kibbles? Stolen. Pen on the table? Knocked off. Chair you wanted to sit in? Taken.
Despite being very hyper and never sleeping, Jabbers is also rather lazy. She loves to run after a toy as much as she loves to stuff herself and fall asleep on someone’s lap. It’s a contradiction she’ll never resolve.
Reading correspondence is not quite the same as reading a novel, obviously, but it can be just as valuable when it comes to understanding a writer, their work, literature of the period, or the general customs of the time period. Writers writing about writing can be a very enlightening read. This is a review of Letters to a Young Poet.
I had read some of Murdoch’s work previously, but I admit that I wanted this set because the book design was gorgeous from the covers to the selection of typeface and the ratio of text to margins. This is a review of Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea.
There’s been a lot of analysis on the character of Madame Olenska, but in my opinion it’s in the writing of a character like May Welland that truly shows how masterful writing. This is a review of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.
When Greenwood is asked to list her symptoms, she keeps repeating that she can’t read and she can’t sleep. She is studying English for her post-secondary education, and reading as well as words define her life. When she can no longer read, what’s left of her world falls apart, and it drives her to attempt suicide. This is a review of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
It’s a short, but compelling novel that is masterfully written for maximum impact. Larsen’s prose is incisive, blunt, and yet at the same time has a poetic flow and keeps the narrative driving forward smoothly but quickly. A perfect one-afternoon read. This is a review of Passing.
This particular book I found in a bargain bin in a used bookstore and, when I went to research it, found very little information on it and only about three paragraphs of information on the author. This is a review of Anne Douglas Sedgwick’s The Dull Miss Archinard.
Balzac’s sits nearly at the end of main street, and when you sit inside of it, it’s easy to forget that you exist in the modern world. The tin ceiling design and the white marble of the counters as well as the café set up are a comforting beckon to the past and the distant, and it was sitting at one of those counters by the window that I thought about starting a book review blog in the first place. This is a review of Honoré de Balzac’s The Wild Ass’s Skin (La Peau de Chagrin).
The book is one about the ruthlessness and all-consuming nature of greed as well as the eventual consequences of leading a life driven by monetary gain. I won’t give away the ending, but I’ll warn you that it’s nothing like Ebenezer Scrooge’s and there are no warm fuzzies involved. This is a review of Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
Christmas shopping for our household would not be complete without at least one trip to the bookstore. Multiple bookstores. Fanfare Books is where I first discovered the work of Timothy Findley, who spent his final years in this town and was a dedicated friend of the store. This is a review of The Butterfly Plague.
Live-streamed opera is where we first saw Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, which is based on the Pushkin novel. Even though we weren’t provided with subtitles to the Met’s production from 2007, the imagery and the music were capable of conveying the story in and of themselves. Whenever I see fall leaves in piles on the ground, I’m reminded of the set design. This is a review of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin.
