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The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James that first appeared in serial format in Collier’s Weekly magazine (January 27 – April 16, 1898). In October 1898 it appeared in The Two Magics, a book published by Macmillan in New York City and Heinemann in London.
A very young woman’s first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate… An estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls. But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.
I’ve been curious about this book for a while. It was available from my library and was relatively short, so I thought why not.
The Quotes
“Of course I was under the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew I was.”
“To gaze into the depths of blue of the child’s eyes and pronounce their loveliness a trick of premature cunning was to be guilty of a cynicism in preference to which I naturally preferred to abjure my judgment and, so far as might be, my agitation.”
“An unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object of fear to a young woman privately bred.”
The Narrator(s)
Simon Vance, and Vanessa Benjamin. Simon Vance does the prologue, and the rest of the story is predominantly narrated by Vanessa Benjamin. She was wonderful.
My Thoughts
I finished this book in one sitting because it was relatively short and it kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going on and what was going to happen. The story was very confusing, very ambiguous, you don’t get many questions answered, and in fact, the deeper in you go, the more questions you have that don’t get answered. But somehow it worked for me.
To be clear, I think I love the effect of this book more than I actually love the story, but I also think that’s by design. The phrase “the turn of the screw” meaning to add insult to injury, and/or to make something already bad even worse, I feel like James is playing with us. Getting us invested in the story, making us curious, bringing us on a journey, and then leading us to a non-destination that is absolutely dissatisfying and curse-worthy.
You end the book with more questions, in disbelief, wondering if that was it and why the hell you spend the last few hours reading the book at all. You question everything you read in the book, wondering what you missed, wondering what it meant, wondering if any of it was real or true or the ramblings of a madwoman. Well, at least I did. I am both pissed off I read the book and marveling at the brilliance of it, so as I said, I’m not as taken by the story as I am by what it’s doing to me. I feel like I’ve been punked and I kind of like it.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.
John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.
One of my in-person bookclub members praised this book very highly, and it became our December BOTM.
The Quotes
“In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.”
“A war doesn’t merely kill off a few thousand or a few hundred thousand young men. It kills off something in a people that can never be brought back. And if a people goes through enough wars, pretty soon all that’s left is the brute, the creature that we—you and I and others like us—have brought up from the slime.”
“In the University library he wandered through the stacks, among the thousands of books, inhaling the musty odor of leather, cloth, and drying page as if it were an exotic incense.”
The Narrator(s)
Robin Field. It was great, I was very much immersed in Stoner’s world and I thought the narration was perfect.
My Thoughts
I was surprised by how invested I got into Stoner’s life. He’s an ordinary person, not special at all, and he doesn’t do anything special either. He was the most passive person but there were occasional times when he fought hard, and then nothing again, it’s interesting and perhaps true to life. The book follows him throughout his life and we see him through all his ups and downs. There were times you think he might achieve great things or do something extraordinary, times when you hurt for him and celebrate with him, times when you wish you could reach into the book and shake him and tell him to make better choices. There was a lot to think about and I think the writing is absolutely beautiful.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
‘I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.’
Beautiful, clever, rich – and single – Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen’s most flawless work.
I wanted to try more of Austen’s works! And it was a buddy read.
The Quotes
“I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.”
“Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.”
“I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other.”
“There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.”
“Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.”
The Narrator(s)
Wanda McCaddon. I enjoyed the narration.
My Thoughts
Emma is my third Austen book, and I think while I can enjoy Austen’s books, I could also just take them or leave them. They are good, to be fair, and very reflective of the era they were written in, the social expectations, culture, and prejudices. I’d say Austen is quite progressive for her time, and I can enjoy her books as historical and cultural studies, but I can’t enjoy them as romances because it’s hard to accept the ways gender norms and cultural expectations were viewed at the time.
I do love Emma for what it was though. I didn’t find many of the characters in this book likeable, but I do find them interesting and funny, and somewhat relatable. I quite enjoyed the read and got really invested in the drama in a very gossip-y, low-stakes way. I think Austen’s books in general are very well-written and easy to read. It is a little difficult sometimes to ignore the classism, misogyny, issues with age difference, etc. but unfortunately, it’s accurate to the times and culture it was written in, and I try to take that into account and not judge the story based on that. These issues are probably the reason why I could take or leave Austen’s works though.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
“It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships’ cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it.”
So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author’s lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.
This edition of Moby-Dick, which reproduces the definitive text of the novel, includes invaluable explanatory notes, along with maps, illustrations, and a glossary of nautical terms.
It’s been on my TBR for a while now, and it was available as a buddy read in my online bookclub, so I decided now was the time!
The Quotes
“It is not down on any map; true places never are.”
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
“Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.”
The Narrator(s)
Anthony Heald. It was a wonderful narration and I really enjoying listening to his voice.
My Thoughts
It was not the best time for me to read the book because I had a lot of things on my mind, and had many things to do and catch up on, and I was not in the right frame of mind to savor this book. However, I really enjoyed it very much despite my inattentiveness to the story.
To be fair, there was more lecturing about whales than there was an actual story but I still really enjoyed the story, and I really enjoyed the lecturing; about whales, whaling, fossils, ambergris, history of this and that, Ishmael talks about it all! My issue was that I loved the idea of getting to know more about whales, but I wasn’t in the frame of mind to pay attention to the details, so I didn’t get the full benefit of those parts of the book.
As to the story itself, I love the characters and how vibrant they are! They were all kind of larger than life and caricaturistic, but I feel like that makes sense for how dramatic the story is, and the role each of the characters play in the story. It’s not unusual for me to reread books I enjoy over and over again to understand them better, and I think Moby-Dick falls into that category. It almost seems like this first read was like a primer for me, so that when I reread this I’ll know what to look out for and where I need to pay attention. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it more when I read it again!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the ‘Master’ and his imminent arrival.
In Dracula, Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.
It’s one of my online book club’s buddy reads for Halloween season.
The Quotes
“Remember my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker.”
“The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of.”
“Doctor, you don’t know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don’t; you couldn’t with eyebrows like yours.”
“Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.”
The Narrator(s)
Tavia Gilbert and J.P. Guimont. I loved this narration, it was so immersive.
My Thoughts
Wow, this is one hell of a journey! I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed the book considering it’s been adapted to death in pop culture media. A lot of the story is familiar to me, of course, but reading it for the first time, I’m enjoying so much of the nuances of the individual characters and their actual interactions with each other.
Van Helsing’s reasonings and the way he speaks to and cares for the other characters really jumps off the page to me, and I can’t help but love him. Mina is also such a wonderful character, so vibrant and smart and compassionate, caring about everyone else even when she’s the one in danger. I love that the book is in epistolary form, and that it plays a part in how they document events and discover connections.
The book did go on longer than I expected, but I found it interesting how much that added to the tension; the waiting, anticipating resolutions – was Lucy going to get better? was Mina going to die? will they find where Dracula is? will they triumph over evil? I’m really surprised how much I loved reading the book! I’m pretty sure I’ll reread it again soon!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
‘Now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart …’
Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. Mary Shelley’s chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley near Byron’s villa on Lake Geneva. It would become the world’s most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity.
Based on the third edition of 1831, this volume contains all the revisions Mary Shelley made to her story, as well as her 1831 introduction and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s preface to the first edition. This revised edition includes as appendices a select collation of the texts of 1818 and 1831 together with ‘A Fragment’ by Lord Byron and Dr John Polidori’s ‘The Vampyre: A Tale’.
It was my online bookclub’s BOTM, and it’s one of my favorite classic horror stories.
The Quotes
“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”
“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”
“The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.”
My Thoughts
It’s one of my favorite classic horror books but it’s been a while since I read it. Rereading it again now, there are a lot of details I’ve forgotten, but the question of who the real monster is still truly intrigues me. I love how it’s an exploration of human nature, even though one of the MCs is not really human. I love that there is a spotlight on fathers and their roles as parents. We often see mothers being scrutinized for their parenting, but here it’s the “father” who’s the only person responsible for the parenting.
I love that this book is such food for thought about the human condition and what it means to be human, the need for love and belonging regardless of your origins. It’s heartbreaking to see what can happen when people don’t get the love and care they desperately need. I also think that despite being categorized as creature horror, it’s also very much social horror and very relevant to the human condition today.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
‘Everything is finished. I have nothing but you now. Remember that’
Anna Karenina seems to have everything – beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalizes society and family alike and soon brings jealously and bitterness in its wake. Contrasting with this tale of love and self-destruction is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man striving to find contentment and a meaning to his life – and also a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself.
This has been on my TBR for a while. I had a few false starts last year but there was a buddy read this year that motivated me to finally finish it.
The Quotes
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.”
“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”
“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.”
The Narrator(s)
Maggie Gyllenhaal. She was great! I enjoyed her narration a lot more than the one I tried last year (forgot who the narrator was, but it wasn’t Maggie!).
My Thoughts
I honestly love Tolstoy’s writing and the way he keeps me invested, interested, in suspense, never knowing what’s coming next, but I also didn’t like the characters and the over-the-top drama and toxicity, and I’m just so happy it’s over!
I thought I would like Anna’s character more, but I couldn’t stand her once we got to know her more and I really hated her by the end of the book. In fact, I didn’t really like any of the characters much, but funny enough, I loved the character study and I was very impressed by the way Tolstoy kept me interested in them throughout the whole book.
There was so much to explore with the different characters; their behaviors, motivations, growth or non-growth. I never knew where they were going to go or what they were going to do, but it also never felt unrealistic to me. I just love Tolstoy’s writing and I definitely want to read more, but I feel like I never want to read this book again because I’m so sick of Anna and I never want to see her again. Fortunately, Tolstoy has got several other books I can read, so I’m looking forward to those!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
A wonderfully entertaining coming-of-age story, Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen’s “Gothic parody.” Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.
The story’s unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry’s mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.
Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is a lighthearted, yet unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
“A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.”
“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.”
My Thoughts
I’m not a big Jane Austen reader, I’ve only read Pride and Prejudice and now this book, but I’ve enjoyed both and very interested in reading more of her books. I think she writes very interesting characters, and her books have the best quotes! I had such a hard time limiting the quotes because there were so many that resonated with me!
The characters are the best thing about this book for me; I was completely appalled by the behavior of several of the characters here, I can’t believe how rude they were especially for the era, but on the other hand, I love Catherine, the MC of the book. I really admired how she handled herself in the face of other people’s bad behavior towards her, and considering how young she was, the poise with which she handled it. I don’t think I had the same fortitude when I was her age. Heck, I don’t think I have the same fortitude now!
To be honest, I’ve never felt the need to read more of Austen’s works after Pride and Prejudice because that was the most popular one and I thought it was enough, but I really enjoyed reading Northanger Abbey and now I’m compelled to read more of Austen’s other works!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.
First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love’s absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
“I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible.”
“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”
“Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.”
The Narrator(s)
Richard Poe. It was good, no complaints.
My Thoughts
I think I would’ve liked it more if I didn’t have such high expectations from the get-go. A friend from years ago once told me this was her favorite book and talked it up so much that I had the impression I was going to be blown away. Add to that, the fact that it’s been 20 years since and the legend of the book has only grown in my mind, so perhaps it was unsurprising that I would be disappointed.
In the interest of fairness though, I’m being as objective as I can about my thoughts on this book. I love Lee, he was the best character in the book, but I didn’t like most of the other characters. The women especially weren’t developed well enough; it didn’t feel like they were real people but rather just plot devices and caricatures.
I get that this story is a retelling of the Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel stories, but it felt a little on the nose and doesn’t bring anything new to the table. I love retellings, but I need them to serve the story a little more than this!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Although most children today are introduced to the world of Oz through the classic 1939 movie, L. Frank Baum has been captivating the hearts of the young, and not so young, for over a hundred years.
This delightful compilation includes all fifteen books written by L. Frank Baum:
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz The Marvelous Land of Oz Ozma of Oz Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz The Road to Oz The Emerald City of Oz The Patchwork Girl Of Oz Little Wizard Stories of Oz Tik-Tok of Oz The Scarecrow Of Oz Rinkitink In Oz The Lost Princess Of Oz The Tin Woodman Of Oz The Magic of Oz Glinda Of Oz
Perhaps there is no better, or fitting, introduction one could give to this compilation than the author’s note that Baum himself writes in his very first book, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Here he reveals the true intention of his work. Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations. Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as “historical” in the children’s library; for the time has come for a series of newer “wonder tales” in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident. Having this thought in mind, the story of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.
I was reading it for a thick book challenge; multiple books in one binding count!
The Quotes
“The reason most people are bad is because they do not try to be good.”
“Do not, I beg of you, dampen today’s sun with the showers of tomorrow.”
“Finally, were you all like me, I would consider you so common that I would not care to associate with you. To be individual, my friends, to be different from others, is the only way to become distinguished from the common herd. Let us be glad, therefore, that we differ from one another in form and in disposition. Variety is the spice of life, and we are various enough to enjoy one another’s society; so let us be content.”
“There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The True courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty.”
The Narrator(s)
Charles Hubbell. The narration was fine, but the audio engineering was a pain! I had to adjust the volume constantly because they weren’t consistent across the chapters, and we’re talking about a 64-hour audiobook, so that’s a lot of adjusting.
My Thoughts
Believe it or not, it’s my first time reading the Oz stories, including the first book! I’m so pleasantly surprised with how fun they are, and how completely imaginative and wholesome. There are a few old-fashioned ideas, but considering these books were written so long ago, and have mostly wholesome messages, I’ll forgive the few transgressions. I love that even though there are so many different characters, they are all very distinct and individual. The adventures were fun and low-stakes, and all’s well that ends well. I loved it!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
