The kids are out of school and looking to be entertained.  The temperatures are creeping up into the mid 90s.  We’re staying up late enjoying the long, light summer evenings.  Between the heat, late nights and kid chaos, I’ve lost all motivation.  I’ve been way too lethargic to lift fingers to keyboard.  All this laziness has been the perfect excuse to enjoy some great books, though.  I’m pulling myself (very briefly) out of summer slacking mode to reveal how my reading hours have been spent.   Like drama and intrigue?  Get ...

  If the last two selections from my neighborhood book club were pitted against each other in a smack down based on reader response, there would be a definite knockout.  Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather would be flat on its back, with The Help by Kathryn Stockett standing victoriously at center ring.    When we met to discuss The Help in March, we had our biggest crowd ever.  We packed ourselves into every available seat, all eager to talk about the relationship between privileged white women and their African-American “help” in the ...

  Unless you live an existence sequestered from all media (which, as a blog reader, obviously you don’t), you already know that Apple’s newest must-have electronic gadget, the iPad, hit store shelves this week.  Among the many bells and whistles this product offers is the iBook application.  Yep, it’s another way to read books from a screen rather than from the traditional paper page.  I don’t yet read by Kindle or by Nook, and this newest arrival is once again making me question whether or not I should be reading books electronically.  & ...

Jane!  Do I even need to give her last name?     In his essay “Emma and the Legend of Jane Austen,” Lionel Trilling wrote:  “It is possible to say of Jane Austen, as perhaps we can say of no other writer, that the opinions which are held of her work are almost as interesting, and almost as important to think about, as the work itself.”    If you’re a Janeite, think about that for a moment.  Sounds a bit blasphemous, doesn’t it?  Of course, Trilling does go on to say that “this statement, even with ...

  If I call a book a bathroom book, you know exactly what I mean.  You have just a few minutes, not nearly long enough to delve into that novel you are reading.  After all, it’s no fun to just get into something, run out of time, and later have to back track to remind yourself where you were.  For this reason the bathroom book was invented.  I’ve recently come across the perfect book to keep next to the white throne, or anywhere else you might find yourself with a few spare minutes.      Dipping into Vanity Fair’s Proust Qu ...

Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca had me from its famous opening sentence:  “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”  What follows is a beautifully crafted tale of suspense whose captivating plot is matched by the mastery of du Maurier’s skilled character development and powers of description.  It is no wonder that Hitchcock chose to make this story into a film, and that the film version of Rebecca is a masterpiece.  Rebecca is cinematic in the best ways; the settings and scenes du Maurier conjures with her words are as vivid as the finest cinemato ...