Book Description
From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new.
Black Swan tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping” through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran Lps, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons.
Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s subtlest and most effective achievement to date.
Download Description
David Mitchell is the author of
Ghostwritten,
Number9Dream, and
Cloud Atlas, the last 2 finalists for the Booker Prize. Granta magazine named him one of Britain’s best young novelists in 2003. He lives in County Cork with his wife and daughter.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
An enjoyable read, but not for everyone........2007-10-02
Black Swan Green: A Novel
"Black Swan Green" By David Mitchell.
"Black Swan Green" chronicles one year in the life of 13 year old Jason Taylor who lives in a small town in England named Black Swan Green in 1982. The book is broken into 13 chapters with each chapter devoted to one month in Jason's life starting in January and ending in January (January man).
This book was very good and I rate it on a par with "Catcher in the Rye" or "A Separate Peace". Be warned this book is not for everyone and is a little bit of a sleeper. Initially it was slow going, a book about the trials and tribulations of a 13 year old yada yada. Right when I thought I was getting bored with the book the hooks were in. The initial part of the book which seemed a little slow was the necessary character building stage and after that the characters were alive and I cared about them and had to find out what happened. I say it isn't for everyone and this it true. This story isn't an action packed thrill ride and it isn't filled with mystery or violence or sex. What it is full of is very life like realistic characters that you come to see could have been you or someone you knew growing up. If you enjoy character driven stories you will probably like this however if you need action etc, this may not be for you.
The Good: As stated the characters are superbly written. Not a lot to elaborate on. This is a character driven story and the characters are excellently drawn.
The Bad: A little slow at first but the patient reader will be rewarded.
Overall: I recommend this book. It was very enjoyable and worth giving a read!
Good story, reads quickly.......2007-09-19
I enjoyed this book very much. I liked how the story was constructed over one year in the boy's life, and there were several interesting plots going on, that all seemed to resolve by the end. I found myself laughing out loud from time to time. It was a fast read for me, and I thought that the 13-y/o's narrative made it even more interesting. I liked all the characters that came in and out of the novel, especially the old woman who was going to teach French. I was shocked by the depravity of some of Taylor's "friends" and their families, though I guess I shouldn't have been...that's everywhere. I wish this story didn't end!
Couldn't get into this book.......2007-09-08
This book was recommended to me because I enjoyed Middlesex, no comparison. I gave up reading "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell in the middle of chapter one. I started reading again, put it down picked it up and finally..........Yes, it was that dull. However, the New York Times has a positive review of "Black Swan Green". I could find only one negative comment in the entire review
What is it REALLY like to be a 13-year-old boy? .......2007-08-19
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell answers that very question. I choose this book to read because it was listed as a New York Times Notable book in 2006, and I'm certainly glad I did!
Black Swan Green is the name of the small village in Worcestershire where 13-year-old Jason Taylor lives. It's a sleepy little village minus the swans. The year is 1982, and Jason is trying to navigate his way through a maze of difficulties: bullies at school, trying to blend in, overcoming a stammer that could label him forever, parents at war with each other, an older sister that calls him "The Thing", a war in the Falklands, and gypsies that have taken up residence is the village. Can life really be so difficult at 13? You bet it can!
Eliot Bolivar is a poet that submits his writing to the local parish magazine. He is talented and writes eloquently. And he is actually Jason Taylor, our 13-year-old antagonist. But really, could a kid hold up his head in school if he admits to being a POET? I think not!
This book is chocked full of insight. It is exactly one year in the life of Jason Taylor. Mitchell's writing is so fantastic, you can actually see through the eyes of this boy. At first, it was a bit difficult to understand some of the British phrasing and terms, but that didn't stop any enjoyment I felt reading this book. When Jason was called on to read aloud in class, I actually could FEEL his fear in the pit of MY stomach. Trying to navigate through school without being seen, not popular enough to be part of the in-crowd, and not detested enough to be one of the lepers, Jason tries hard to fit in. And he has to fit in in a way that lets him live with himself.
One of my favorite passages in the book comes right at the end: "The world's a Headmaster who works on your faults. I don't mean in a mystical or a Jesus way. More how you'll keep tripping over a hidden step, over and over, till you finally understand: Watch out for that step! Everything that's wrong with us, if we're too selfish or too Yessir, Nosir, Three bags full sir or too anything, that's a hidden step. Either you suffer the consequences of not noticing your fault forever, or , one day, you DO notice it, and fix it. Joke is, once you get it into your brain about THAT hidden step and think, Hey, life isn't so bad after all again, then BUMP! Down you go, a whole new flight of hidden steps. There are always more."
The entire book is filled with this type of writing and insight. The characters are all well-rounded, simple yet complex. This book will make you laugh and it will make you cry. And it will make you exceedingly glad that you never have to go through that horrible time in life again. I would recommend it whole-heartedly!
Great Brit writing.......2007-08-04
This book captures completely the experience of being an outsider. Wonderfully written. Jason Taylor and sister Julia, Mom and Dad's marriage on the rocks. Jason stutters and has voices of Maggot and Unborn Twin speak what he can't. Hangman trips him up over certain words, he never knows which ones until it happens. He's a misfit in school, which in the English system there is no help for. Jason survives against the almost incredible odds of the social system he is faced with. With the problem of bullying so prominent now, this is a timely and instructive book.
Amazon.com
In the early 1990s, Eamon Duffy's monumental The Stripping of the Altars provided a new slant on the English Reformation. Duffy has now dug deeper into the same fascinating period. The Voices of Morebath is the story of a hamlet buried deep in the heart of Devon. The parish priest Sir Christopher Trychay remained in office through the troubled times of the mid-16th century. During his long tenure he carefully recorded the impact of national events in his ordinary rural community. Trychay's account is unique because it is not a personal diary but a record of the parish accounts. Sir Christopher, however, was talkative and opinionated, so the accounts are laden with the minutiae of parish life. Duffy weaves these otherwise cryptic details into the wider tapestry of events of the time, and by analysing the result shows the devastating revolution that took place in ordinary people's lives. As the drama unfolds we see the folk of Morebath forced from their secure Catholicism into the new religion of King Henry. After Edward's brief reign the villagers breathe a sigh of relief and haul out all their Catholic paraphernalia, grateful that Mary Tudor has restored the Catholic faith. Then it all goes for good once Elizabeth takes the throne. Duffy has given us history that is absorbing, readable, and complete. His own enthusiasm for his topic gives the book a zest that takes it beyond the usual academic tome. Anyone the least bit interested in English history must not neglect this important book. --Dwight Longenecker, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
This delightful book offers a rare glimpse of life in a remote sixteenth-century English village during the dramatic changes of the Reformation. Through vividly detailed parish records kept from 1520 to 1574 by Sir Christopher Trychay, the garrulous priest of Morebath, we see how a tiny Catholic community rebelled, was punished, and reluctantly accepted Protestantism under the demands of the Elizabethan state.
Customer Reviews:
Of Altars and Prayerbooks and Candles (and Especially Money).......2006-01-22
THE VOICES OF MOREBATH is perhaps not quite accurately titled. As Duffy himself confesses, what we really have is one voice, that of Christopher Trychay, the local priest, who meticulously set down the financial transactions of his church in this small, rural, not-quite-impoverished hamlet. Even there we do not hear Trychay's total voice, for he was not recording his thoughts, philosophies, or observations about the government or the society around him, just the financial records of the church. Of course, a careful reading of such records can tell us a surprising amount about the welfare of the hamlet, especially because, at the time, the secular and spiritual realms were inextricably intertwined.
Duffy's writing style is not, I fear, particularly engrossing, and, at times, I had to force my attention on the sense of the text. Still, considering that Duffy was examining primarily financial records, hardly scintillating fare regardless of the historical era, he does a fair job at interpretation and extrapolation, and the observations of Morebath society that he draws from these records are well supported. Duffy is being a careful historian here, for he refrains from interjecting conclusions and suppositions that are not supported by the record; however, occasional dry passages are the inevitable result of such a studied approach.
I did find several points in this book to be instructive in that they created new perceptions for me: It seems as though churches in 16th Century Britain were as much concerned with their financial status as are those in today's Western societies; we find practically nothing in the record concerning spiritual or social matters but much concerning money. On at least the local level, Tudor-era agricultural villages seem to have had no civil government of any sort, the priest and his church being its substitute. Rather than civil law, social pressure, orchestrated as needed by the priest, ensured conformity with societal norms and financial support of the church.
Most surprisingly, these country farmers seem largely to have bent before the prevailing monarchical winds, changing their religious devotions as dictated by the current king or queen, moving from Catholicism to Protestantism under Henry and Edward, reverting to Catholicism under Mary, and then harking back to Protestantism under Elizabeth. Under one monarch, they had to surrender their holy books and ornamentation, and under the next they had to restore them. They apparently did so with such relative ease that one wonders just how sincere they were in their religious beliefs. This picture does seem to conflict with that drawn by Alice Hogge in her book GOD'S SECRET AGENTS, which is rife with beheadings, disembowelings, secret "priest holes" built into houses, and serious government spying. However, perhaps that is a difference between powerless country farmers and aristocratic city dwellers of the time. There was, of course, indication of at least some passive resistence to these abrupt changes decreed by the government, such as the hiding of church ornamentation now and then, but, except for the Prayer Book Rebellion, the causes of which are not entirely clear to Duffy, there appears to have been little overt resistence in the countryside.
In sum, THE VOICES OF MOREBATH does provide the reader with an informative glance at life in a small country hamlet during the 16th century. Frustratingly, it is a glance through the small window of local church finances and, as such, must surely miss seeing many other aspects of that life. Also, because it is a glance based primarily on everyday financial concerns of a rural church, it sometimes approaches the boring. Still, for a reader who wishes to further his understanding of commoners' lives over four hundred years ago, of the forced transitions of the Reformation, and of the burdensome taxation imposed by successive monarchs intent on waging fruitless wars with Scotland and France, all of which underlay the founding of a constitutional representative democracy in the New World, the book is a valuable resource. I recommend it for the serious student of history if not, perhaps, for the casual reader.
English Reformation made personal.......2003-08-20
From 1520 to 1574, in a small sheep-farming community in Devon, parish priest Christopher Trychay maintained a careful record of village happenings, filling the pages of his account book with what Eamon Duffy calls "the personality, opinions, and prejudices of the most vivid country clergyman of the English sixteenth century." That Trychay's tenure happened to coincide with the English Reformation -- in the course of which his parishioners would be swept into rebellion and he himself would adopt the new Protestant faith -- makes his chronicle all the more priceless.
A Window on Tudor Religion and Society.......2001-12-18
Professor Duffy painlessly weaves an engrossing story from the manuscript record of Morebath parish in England's West Country. Important background information is worked in while you trace the story of the parish's growth and trials during the tumultuous changes of the Reformation. Duffy's treatment relies on a unique and garrulous chronicle kept by Morebath's priest for half a century, Sir Christopher Trychay.
Thanks to Duffy's explanations, you understand how catastrophic the changes imposed under Edward VI were for this rural parish. You also see how spirituality was closely woven into the daily life and practice of pre-Reformation Morebath. The story of how the priest and his parishoners work out a modus vivendi under the religious changes of the day makes for compelling reading. The Voices of Morebath is an outstanding example of micro-history, I highly recommend this book for students of Tudor history and culture.
Book Description
In her fortieth book published by Houghton Mifflin, the inimitable Miss Read leads us through the seasons at Thrush Green, the Cotswold village already beloved by her thousands of readers. As the snows of January yield to snowdrops and then daffodils, we look in on a host of characters - whimsical, eccentric, always delightfully recognizable - and their daily affairs. Dotty Harmer serves up an herbal brew to her neighbor Albert Piggott, who has a soft spot for her behind his crusty fa?ade. Architect Edward Young overhears a rumor that the old people's home he designed may be a bit cramped. An American stranger arrives in search of family ties. And at the Fuchsia Restaurant, Albert's wife Nellie finds herself in charge when old Mrs. Peters falls ill, and soon she receives two surprising gifts with implications for her past and her future. As summer unfolds, so do the dramas of village life. By year's end, these stories are satisfyingly interlocked, capturing a bygone era with wit and charm.
Book Description
Containing many chants, recitations, and ceremonial texts in print for the first time, Plum Village Chanting and Recitation Book is the quintessential resource and reference book for monastic and lay practitioners in Thich Nhat Hanh's worldwide Sangha. It is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to celebrate life and practice the art of mindful living.
Customer Reviews:
Daily practice guide.......2003-07-27
This book is an excellent guide to your daily practice and also has some ceremonies that can be used for special occasions. The hardcover book is beautifully bound and has two practical red ribbon markers to help you find your place. Sheet music is included with many of the chants and a companion CD, "Chanting Breath by Breath with the Monks and Nuns of Plum Village," is also now available as of Spring 2003. Enjoy!
A Much-Needed Collection for Students of Thich Nhat Hanh.......2000-09-27
Followers of Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh have always felt close to this kind and gentle teacher. In this compilation of Buddhist chants and ceremonies used at his community of Plum Village, we are given a chance to participate in the meritous work of Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh and, of course, the Buddha. Whether or not we are able to visit Plum Village in person, I feel this book will provide a crucial and nurturing link to that holy place. More detailed instructions for the ceremonies would be a nice, but the book is structured along the lines of a traditional book of common prayer, so it is not necessarily within its scope to provide lengthy instruction. A note about form: the language is mostly traditional, which might strike some western Buddhists as narrow. Hopefully, those familiar Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh's teaches will understand that he never advocates a strictly traditional, rigid understanding of ancient Buddhist concepts. All in all, this is a very useful and beautiful volume written and compiled by a loving community.
Average customer rating:
- not so good detective book
- Light reading
- Delighted to find this wonderful author.
- Won't win the Pulitzer Prize but it's a great cozy mystery
- Read it for the pleasure of the Welsh culture
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Evans Above (A Constable Evans Mystery)
Rhys Bowen
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
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Evan Only Knows (Constable Evans Mysteries)
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ASIN: 0312168284 |
Book Description
First title in a new mystery series set in North Wales, introducing amateur sleuth but professional village policeman Evan Evans.
Customer Reviews:
not so good detective book.......2007-08-09
Because I liked the first book in the Murphy series by the same author, I tried this series - didn't even make it through the first ook - too much swearing.
Light reading.......2006-11-17
This is the first in a series of murder mysteries written by Rhys Bowen. Constable Evans is a policeman living and working in North Wales. The author knows this part of the world very well, and writes in the style of Agatha Christie. This book served me very well as light reading while travelling. Rhys Bowen has also written another series of murder mysteries with an Irish heroine by name of Molly Murphy. Both of these series are very well worth while.
Delighted to find this wonderful author........2006-05-28
Rhys Bowen is a new author for me and I am delighted to have discovered this series of mysteries. I enjoyed Evans Above for many reasons. The mystery is actually a good mystery. All the clues are given and discernible (if you read carefully) so all the action takes place in a very logical progression. The characters are very likeable and read like real people. The location descriptions are clear and recognizable even to those of us who live here in the "flatlands". I liked Evan Evans. He was not a bumbling, stumbling idiot but neither was he a self promoting intellectual who always knew what the clues meant but had to keep the meaning hidden until the last moment so that he got all the credit.
A pleasant, enjoyable read that captured my interest immediately and held me in suspense so that I really wanted to know what was going to happen. I enjoyed it so much I was not even tempted to flip to the end to solve the mystery, I wanted it to unfold just as this talented author wrote it.
Won't win the Pulitzer Prize but it's a great cozy mystery.......2004-06-27
This is the first in the series and my first by this author, but I was not disappointed. It took 25 pages or so to get into the book, but after that, I kept wanting to get back to it.
The Welsh setting (in a village by Mount Snowden) figures large in this book. Constable Evan Evans (how much more Welsh a name can you get?) is a Welshman (Welsh is his first language, English his second) who (even though he was on track to be an inspector) has taken a humble position as the village constable after his father's tragic death. It's a good thing, because two bodies appear, apparently the victims of climbing accidents -- but Evans doesn't think so. The powers that be have a very low opinion of village constables and dismiss him and his theories, but he keeps plugging away. In the meantime, there's this child-killer on the loose that everyone is looking for.
The mystery is full of the village types (including a Major who runs the Swiss chalet style inn and the two ministers' wives whose husbands pastor the two adjacent chapels in this village). Evans spends much of his time dodging single woman (or the grandmothers of single women) who regard him as a catch.
Evans is likeable and the plot of the mystery was flawless -- kept me guessing until the very end. I look forward to reading more in this series.
Read it for the pleasure of the Welsh culture.......2003-06-27
The first installment in the Constable Evans series of Welsh mysteries introduces us to the quiet village of Llanfair, at the foot of mount Snowdon in Northern Wales. With its slate blue cottages and warm townsfolk, it is the last place on earth for murder. Or is it? Faster than you can say "bore da" (the Welsh "hello"), Constable Evan Evans - "You can't get more Welsh than that, can you?" (Page 213) - is whisked away from his weekly sermon at church when the terrible deaths of two apparent climbers take place at the famous mountain, quite furtively. An investigation immediately opens but Constable Evans doesn't get much help. He has to deal with some eccentric superiors who would not accept his hunches about the two deaths being connected, even though they happened in two different spots at Mount Snowdon.
Poor Evans doesn't have it easier on his personal turf either. Two local women are on his track: one exuberant barmaid and a demure school teacher who are at each other's throats over him, a landlady who overfeeds him Welsh delicacies, and the local minister's wife, who expects him to be at her beck-and-call for everything from tomato theft to flowerbed trampling.
This is a complex mystery that starts off with two murders, but it develops into an engaging puzzle of disappearances, child crimes, robbery, etc.; where Constable Evans always tries to find "a connection". As the book progresses, this becomes his mantra, as the confusion increases and the so called connection seems most elusive, but it's always lurking in the background, until it eventually turns up.
I didn't find the denouement all that fair to the reader. As a matter of fact, it is impossible to discover whodunit on the book's evidence alone because a vital piece of information is missing until, all of a sudden, we're confronted with the murderer. Withholding information in a mystery is a serious crime (get it?). The evidence, the clues, must all be well hidden and sometimes even presented deceptively; but they must always be there, and the reader must be able to sense them. This is not so in "Evans Above". Luckily, however, this country cozy is entertaining enough, when at the same time reflects the fierce nationalism that makes this part of the UK stand as a land on its own. The local customs and the spirit of the people come through, giving the book its true value. As it says in the prologue, one doesn't think of Wales as a foreign country, but in fact it is. It is one of those places I'd like to visit some day, and, thanks to books like this one, I know I'll keep it in my heart.
Book Description
In April, when blackthorn blossom clothes the hedgerows like a wedding veil, there sometimes comes a spell of frost or snow so severe that it seems as if spring and summer will never return. This is what country people call a blackthorn winter.
For Claudia Barron, the blackthorn winter of that particular April is like a metaphor for her whole life: for the end of glamour, financial security and marriage. Her rich and powerful husband has been sent to prison, leaving her homeless and virtually penniless. Hopeless to cling to the remnants of her old life, pointless to stand by a man who has betrayed her in almost every way a man can betray a woman.
Instead she goes into hiding, buys the only house she can afford in the Dorset village of Court Barton - a hideous bungalow built in an old kitchen garden - and changes her name. Under a cloak of anonymity she sets out to get herself a job in the local school. But villages don't much like anonymity and before very long Claudia finds herself drawn into the gossip and the grumbling, the lives and loves and quarrels of Court Barton in a way that she had never expected. Blackthorn winters do always give way to spring in the end.
Customer Reviews:
Deeply satisfying read!.......2007-09-25
Great human elements. Wish my small town could adapt some of Ms. Challis' well-developed empathy. Vivid, multigenerational characters are portrayed realistically. Her descriptions of local flora and fauna provide visions of thick hedges, stone walls, thickly-wooled sheep. Finished with a big smile and a cup of hot tea with milk - not a bad commendation for a summer-read in Georgia!
Great characters.......2007-07-02
I've run out of Maeve Binchy books and this was a great substitute! I love getting to know the characters in the little towns and this book entertains with just that. I am going to be buying more of Sarah Challis's books.
Blackthorn Winter.......2007-01-20
Enjoyed very much. Readers who are Rosemund Pilcher amd Marsha Willet fans will also like Sarah Challis'works.
Sarah Challis Weaves Endearing Characters Into Charming Village Tale.......2006-08-28
This was my first Sarah Challis novel and I found her delightful characters living in a charming English village completely captivating. Readers who are enchanted by Rosamunde Pilcher and Marcia Willett will find Challis to be an equally enjoyable writer to spend time with.
Claudia Barron has led a glitzy and glamorous life in London. Alas, her well-known husband has recently been splattered across the tabloids, convicted of fraud, and exposed as an adulterer. Humiliated, Claudia flees to an inconspicuous village and hopes to live anonymously and detached from fair-weather friends. Even though she changes her name, her reclusive behavior causes mumblings in the village and before she can say "no comment" she has been thrust into a cast of characters as endearing as any you would want to meet: Julia Durnford, her nosey parker neighbor who manages every detail of the village; Peter, Julia's milquetoast husband; their daughter Victoria who is feeling the pangs of being the left-out and lonely teenager at boarding school; Jena, the ten-year old gypsy who runs free; and Valerie, the semi-alcoholic neighbor to whom Claudia can reveal her secrets. Add to this mix, Claudia's visiting adult children: the lively Lila who flies in from New York and Jerome, the brooding son who returns from India with a secret too devastating to share. And finally, there are the two available men who catch Claudia's eye---will she succumb to the sexy and suave Anthony Brewer or be stabilized by Chris, the straightforward widower with four daughters?
Cozy and comforting, this is a most appealing novel I was sad to see end.
Blackthorn Winter.......2005-07-10
Very hard to get into.... I'm almost 1/2 way and can still put it down easily.............
Average customer rating:
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STORY OF AN ENGLISH VILLAGE (Story of an English Village)
Goodall
Manufacturer: Margaret K. McElderry
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0689501250 |
Average customer rating:
- Much-loved series reaches finale
- miss read's #1 fan!!!
- miss read's #1 fan!!!
- Miss Read returns us again to a place we may already live.
- A wonderful book that brings us home.
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A Peaceful Retirement (Fairacre)
Miss Read
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0395850622 |
Book Description
Far from peaceful, Miss Read's first year of retirement is filled with homespun adventures, as this charming book brings the Fairacre series of novels to a close. Having bid farewell to her pupils at Fairacre School, Miss Read finds herself as busy and in demand as ever, on holiday in Florence, helping with church and school affairs, and offering a kindly ear to her often eccentric neighbors. Soon she is counseling Henry Mawne on his thorny marriage, gently resisting her own perennial suitor, John Jenkins, and, finally, discovering her talent for writing. Once again, Miss Read's affection for the minutiae of village life, her love of nature, and her good humor make her excellent company. Miss Read's many fans will have more to look forward to: the author will continue to add to her Thrush Green series of novels.
Customer Reviews:
Much-loved series reaches finale .......2004-09-29
Miss Read has written over 40 titles, with this final tome describing how her headmistress heroine copes with her new-found life of leisure.
In an afterword, the author says she is laying down her pen "with a thankful heart". It is all the more surprising therefore that these final tales show no sign of staleness. In fact, "A Peaceful Retirement" is quite playful in tone as Miss Read copes valiantly with a series of unlooked-for marriage proposals.
Given that the school year is so regular the author manages to describe events such as Christmas celebrations and harvest festivals with no sense of repetition, and as ever captures the tensions between town and country living, children's and adult worlds and men and women beautifully.
With this book Dora Saint, the real-life Miss Read, can take her own retirement from authorship knowing that she has served her readers well.
miss read's #1 fan!!!.......2000-09-25
I just finished reading "A Peaceful Retirement". Just like her other books, it was excellent reading. I was sorry when the book ended because I wanted to read more. Few years ago I wrote Miss Read a letter stating I loved all her books. She was kind enough to write me a handwritten letter in reply. After a hetic day, I look forward to reading her books and revisit the loveable characters in the quiet town.
miss read's #1 fan!!!.......2000-09-25
I just finished reading "A Peaceful Retirement". Just like her other books, it was excellent reading. I was sorry when the book ended because I wanted to read more. Few years ago I wrote Miss Read a letter stating I loved all her books. She was kind enough to write me a handwritten letter in reply. After a hetic day, I look forward to reading her books and revisit the loveable characters in the quiet town.
Miss Read returns us again to a place we may already live........1999-02-27
Miss Read's novels capture the best aspects of the small town provincial novel--the sense of connection, the wry Austenisms--while leaving the sentimentality and pollyanna-ism sometimes afflicting the genre to her lesser imitators. A Peaceful Retirement brings us another step--perhaps a final step--nearer to the end of this series. I recommend this series, and this book within the series, to anyone who wishes that a novel might have both a 20th C. awareness and a somewhat 19th C. sense of perspective....Most people have not discovered Miss Read, and one somehow wonders if "most people" really ought to. But I am certainly glad that I did....
A wonderful book that brings us home........1999-01-27
I enjoyed this book just as much as I have all the other books written by Miss Read. The reason that I enjoyed this book so much was that it was like catching up with old friends and being transported back to the Village and all the surrounding scenery which captures my imagination. I recommend that you read not only this book but all those that Miss Read (Dora Saint) has written for anyone that enjoys people and a very descriptive story which includes the lovely countryside that one can only imagine. I will miss my friends very much. Thank You Dora Saint for giving me many hours of pleasure.
Average customer rating:
- The Village in the Jungle
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The Village in the Jungle (20th Century Classics)
I. Woolfe , and
Leonard Woolf
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0192813129 |
Customer Reviews:
The Village in the Jungle.......1999-11-24
The Village in the Jungle, a fictional novel by Leonard Woolf, associates a series of catastrophic stories with one another. The predominant figures are Silindu (a hunter) and his two daughters Punchi Menika and Hinnihami. This story itself is based upon several different significant themes, including fate, love and tragedy. Personally, I found the book an absolute delight to read, being both suspenseful and interesting. Although the book cover jacket will most likely lack appeal to many people, this is most definitely a situation where one should not "judge a book by its cover". The title, The Village in the Jungle is nothing short of appropriate to the theme and plot of the novel. The plot, in a nutshell, is about a man named Silindu, who lives in the jungle and resists fate at every turn. He is an excellent hunter with cunning eyes, hunched-up shoulders and a small dark face all pinched. His ability of traveling around the jungle exceeds those of the animals. The incredible descriptions Woolf utilizes in the story allows the reader to clearly picture Silindu and his quest. The climax of the story is about Silindu's journey, having caught an "eccentric" disease. He didn't allow his daughter Hinnihami to marry a man from Vederala in the first place. Thus it was said that the disease he has is actually an evil spell. No matter how much effort he tries to cure himself it won't happen unless he willingly lets his daughter marry the man. The plot itself is really exciting throughout the entire book, with a few parts that are fairly slower in pace. "Leafless trees, hot humid air, rigid branches, and spider leg stems" is a portion of Leonard's description of the Jungle. All of his descriptions are perfectly arranged throughout the story, in which it makes the readers fall into the fabricated jungle described in his plot. "The air is heavy with the heat beating up from the earth. There is a fear everywhere: in the silence and in the shrill calls and the wild cries, in the stir of the scattered leaves and the grating of branches, in the gloom, in the startled, slinking, and peering beasts." (Pg 6, Woolf) This is one of the best lines taken out of the novel, because it gives the reader a full picture of the setting in the story. I highly recommend this novel to anyone looking for a hero's novel, although copies are exceedingly rare to locate as there were initially only a limited amount of copies printed. Through this story we can evidently see Silindu's courage in facing problems in unfavorable circumstances. I personally believe he is a true hero, because he really did have the spirit in surviving and staying alive no matter what happened. Overall, this novel is definitely an extraordinary thrilling book for anyone, providing hours of entertainment for people of all ages.
Book Description
Trouble brews in the tiny country village of Fairacre when it is discovered that Farmer Miller's Hundred Acre Field is slated for real estate development. Alarming rumors are circulating, among them the fear that the village school may close. The endearing schoolmistress Miss Read brings her inimitable blend of affection and clear-sighted candor to this report, in which a young girl finds her first love, an older woman accepts a new role in life, and the impassioned battle to save the village from being engulfed is at the forefront of every villager's mind.
Customer Reviews:
Miss Read's Simple Charms Shine Through.......2000-06-04
Miss Read wrote about the virtues of voluntary simplicity long before it became a movement or seminar topic. Her Fairacre books use a single school teacher in a small English village as an observer of a richly realized provincial life. One is tempted to wax on about the influence of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens in her work, or to somehow disparage Jan Karon, who has created a Readesque world from a North Carolina milieu. No doubt one day folks will write their masters' theses discussing how Ms. Read and Muriel Spark headed for many of the same places, and yet reached such different destinations. But really, all that folderol would be missing the point completely. Miss Read writes warm, sentimental gentle English provincial satire, which is really all you need to know.
The Fairacre characters are ordinary folks, burnished up a bit, as novels tend to do, so that they are entirely believable in their own universe, but not necessarily a part of our own "real world". Miss Read is not a pollyanna, nor does she set out to teach us some social lesson. Instead, she sets out for the reader a solid meal of good characterization, gentle wit, and a solid dessert of warm-hearted sentiment.
Storm in the Village deals with a dilemma all too familiar to anyone from a small town--the town church is damaged, and money must be found to repair it. The book exists in a world of happy endings and wonderful good fortune, but the straightforward plotting is beside the point. We do not live in suspense about the ending--we just enjoy with pleasure how our characters make the ending happen. Miss Read is not out to convert us to move to Fairacre, or even to cause us to create our own Fairacres. But she does offer us a chance to peek through the gauze into a middle-class life whose virtues and foibles we recognize and appreciate. Perhaps someone out there now is toiling away on rescuing our suburban stories from the smug modernisms of the latter-day aesthete. In the meantime, though, Miss Read shows us that the ordinary life, well told and brushed up a bit about the edges, can make a darn good read.
Storm in the Village is not going to make you pause and ponder life's inner contradictions. But it may allow you to sigh with relief on a rainy Saturday afternoon. What could be wrong with that?
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