This was the year of Jane Austen, and I dutifully read and re-read all her books for her big 250th birthday. I started the project like a task, but oh-so-quickly got pulled into obsession. As in personal hygiene omitting level of obsession.
Of course I loved Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma... but my favorite of these ended up being her quietest novel, the gothic Northanger Abbey. I felt Austen's wry humor here more than her other books, her biting personality creeping in between the words. By the end, I felt I knew the author as well as her characters.
Introduction and Notes by David Blair, University of Kent.
Northanger Abbey tells the story of a young girl, Catherine Morland who leaves her sheltered, rural home to enter the busy, sophisticated world of Bath in the late 1790s. Austen observes with insight and humour the interaction between Catherine and the various characters whom she meets there, and tracks her growing understanding of the world about her.
In this, her first full-length novel, Austen also fixes her sharp, ironic gaze on other kinds of contemporary novel, especially the Gothic school made famous by Ann Radcliffe. Catherine's reading becomes intertwined with her…
I actually read Hugh Howey's whole trilogy: Wool, Shift, and Dust. And I couldn't get over how unique and wonderful the concept was. But more importantly, it struck me as one of the deepest thrillers I'd read. The characters were multi-dimensional and grew deeper with each turn, the story itself was layered. It didn't feel churned out to meet a formula, but seemed to spring deeper — from the heart of the author. How does one feel this in a work of fiction? As a writer, I wish I knew. I can only hope that all the heart I put in my books gets felt on the other end. All I can say, is I felt Hugh Howey's heart reading these novels.
SOON TO BE A MAJOR APPLE TV SERIES __________________________ 'Thrilling, thought-provoking and memorable ... one of dystopian fiction's masterpieces alongside the likes of 1984 and Brave New World.' DAILY EXPRESS
In a ruined and hostile landscape, in a future few have been unlucky enough to survive, a community exists in a giant underground silo.
Inside, men and women live an enclosed life full of rules and regulations, of secrets and lies.
To live, you must follow the rules. But some don't. These are the dangerous ones; these are the people who dare to hope and dream, and who infect others…
I admit I've cheated with Outlander, watching the tv series before reading the books, and am finally catching up. But what I'm thrilled to find as I dig into the books themselves is how well written they are, how well researched, how much immersive detail is included in the sense of place. I'm thrilled to find that I love the books more, not less, for having watched the series. Not only did they not disappoint, they made the whole experience so much richer, and who wouldn't want to spend that many more hours ensconced in this world?
THE THIRD NOVEL IN THE BESTSELLING OUTLANDER SERIES, NOW A HIT TV SHOW
Jamie Fraser is lying on the battlefield of Culloden, where he rises wounded, to face execution or imprisonment. Either prospect pales beside the pain of loss - his wife is gone. Forever.
But sometimes forever is shorter than one thinks. In 1746, Claire Fraser made a perilous journey through time, leaving her young husband to die at Culloden, in order to protect their unborn child. In 1968, Claire has just been struck through the heart, discovering that Jamie Fraser didn't die in battle.
Ellen Prentiss can navigate a ship through blinding fog and treacherous shoals using nothing but mathematics and the stars. In 1841, that makes her indispensable to any captain—and utterly unacceptable to a world that believes women belong in parlors, not on quarterdecks.
With the death of her captain father, Ellen’s lost her mentor, ship, and purpose, and faces the suffocating prospect of a future trapped on land—until her childhood friend returns as Captain Perkins Creesy, commander of a tea trader bound for China.
Perk desperately needs a navigator skilled enough to shave precious weeks off the route to Canton—and Ellen needs passage back to the life that defines her. But their shared past holds a betrayal that nearly destroyed them both, and the sea offers no safe harbor for the secrets between them.
From the fog-shrouded shoals of Cape Henlopen to the cutthroat docks of New York, Ellen must chart a course between the world’s expectations and her own fierce ambitions. The Navigator is the story of a woman who dared to command the stars themselves—and refused to let anyone else determine her destiny.
