In these memorable lines from Mike Bartlett’s play King Charles III, the lead character explains his decision to oppose a law the parliament has passed. He knows his actions will throw the modern British system of government into chaos. People will revolt, and tanks will roll into London. … Read More
Category: fiction
“The sentences would be like bright juggler’s balls, spinning through the air and being deftly caught and thrown up again.”
Or so Rhoda – the aunt in Barbara Pym’s Less Than Angels — thought would happen when “clever” people came to visit the family. Instead, however, she found that the visitors’ sentences could be compared to “scrubbing-brushes, dish cloths, knives” which sometimes “fell to the ground with resounding thuds.” … Read More
“I was unable to decide what it was that I found so irritating about her goodness.”
Wilmet, the main character in Barbara Pym’s novel A Glass of Blessings, after spending a frustrating afternoon with do-gooder Mary, observes that wicked people were often much more fun to be with. I believe that if Wilmet were a real person, she and I would be friends: she is … Read More
“Michael reciting the Declaration of Independence was an echo of something that existed elsewhere.”
In The Underground Railroad, Michael is a slave in Georgia in the 1850s who was taught to recite, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” This is one of many powerful scenes in this novel that show how the ideal of “equality” fell short … Read More
Four Favorite Books from 2017
I’ve already written about the best books of 2017 for teachers, and so today I will focus on the other books that I’ve read this year. My “favorite” books are the ones that I am most likely to read again. Here they are:
1. Elizabeth Strout: Anything Is Possible… Read More
“After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel?”
Amor Towles, author of A Gentleman in Moscow, continues: “Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli.” If you, like me, would like a break from the disasters and tragedies surrounding us, consider reading this wonderful novel about the evolution of … Read More
“We cross from memory into imagination with only a vague awareness of change.”
What are the connections between memory and imagination? Is separateness only an illusion? These are the two questions that Simon Van Booy explores in this beautiful book. Readers aren’t handed the answers. Rather, bits and pieces of the lives of six people are given to us in non-linear order. We … Read More
“The pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to hand.”
What? Only one book for all the students to pass around? In England? In many of his novels, Charles Dickens describes how difficult it was for ordinary families to get any sort of education. In Great Expectations, Pip’s family had a hard time scraping together money for a teacher to … Read More
“The Hopper painting hung on the wall with an indifference so vast it began to feel personal, as though it had been painted for this moment”
The passage continues: “Your troubles are huge and meaningless, it seemed to say, there is only the sun on the side of the house.” The troubles of the people in this illuminating book are vast indeed: no novelist, including Charles Dickens, reveals more clearly the grim scars of poverty and … Read More
“The truth is that my greatest enemies stand not within the crowd outside . . “
What will happen when the reigning 92-year-old queen of England, Elizabeth II, dies and her son Charles, Prince of Wales, becomes king? This play by Mike Bartlett, which PBS presented last Sunday, speculates that Charles will make a desperate attempt to protect one of the hallmarks of democracy, namely, … Read More
“It comes over him in a wave: He’s been wrong about his Tempest, wrong for twelve years.”
Anyone can retell as classic story, but changing a play by Shakespeare while remaining true to the themes and lessons of the original requires skill. Changes were needed, Margaret Atwood told a standing-room-only crowd in Madison, Wisconsin this week, to make Miranda (the daughter who grows up on a deserted … Read More
“What’s past is prologue”
At first glance, this line from Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest” suggests that history repeats itself. This view is written in stone – literally – on the base of the National Archives’ sculpture. The Harvard Gazette and the University of Chicago Magazine use this quote in articles about the ways … Read More
“It was impossibly large and full of beauty and danger in equal parts – and we wanted it all.”
Paula McLain’s novel The Paris Wife describes Hemingway’s earliest years as a novelist writing in Paris after WWI from the perspective of his wife, Hadley. It’s a wonderful novel, set in one of the most dynamic literary periods, where James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and Hemingway … Read More
“Can you tell a story that doesn’t begin, it’s just suddenly happening?”
In each of the six short stories in this collection, which won the 2015 National book Award, things suddenly happen on the first page: there are no descriptions of the setting, no background information. Instead, the story seems to be already happening. In an interview, author Adam Johnson said, … Read More
