re-read Jane Eyre

"I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly."

- Mr. Rochester

I've never read Jane Eyre, so thanks for your post Bulldog. Next time I go to the library downtown, I'll see if they have a copy of that book to check out.

K.

Yes you are welcome, and it is also available online for free at gutenberg.org along with many other classics that are in the public domain (mostly books published up to 1922)

reading....
 

Pedagogy of the Oppressed Paulo Freire

The Great American Read
 

"The television aspect of The Great American Read involves a two-hour opening show to air on May 22 on PBS affiliate stations, then, after summer tapings of “entertaining and informative documentary segments,” the show returns in the fall for six one-hour episodes led by NBC News correspondent Meredith Vieira..."

There is a list of 100 titles as follows:

At their web site, with nice front covers: http://www.pbs.org/the-great-american-read/books/#/

 1984 George Orwell
 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole
 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving
 A Separate Peace John Knowles
 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith
 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain
 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho
 Alex Cross Mysteries (series) James Patterson
 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll
 Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
 And Then There Were None Agatha Christie
 Anne of Green Gables Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Another Country James Baldwin
 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand
 Beloved Toni Morrison
 Bless Me, Ultima Rudolfo Anaya
 The Book Thief Markus Zusak
 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Díaz
 The Call of the Wild Jack London
 Catch-22 Joseph Heller
 The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
 Charlotte's Web E. B. White
 The Chronicles of Narnia (series) C.S. Lewis
 Clan of the Cave Bear Jean M. Auel
 Coldest Winter Ever Sister Souljah
 The Color Purple Alice Walker
 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky
 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon
 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
 Doña Bárbára Rómulo Gallegos
 Dune Frank Herbert
 Fifty Shades of Grey (series) E. L. James
 Flowers in the Attic V.C. Andrews
 Foundation (series) Isaac Asimov
 Frankenstein Mary Shelley
 Game of Thrones (series) George R. R. Martin
 Ghost Jason Reynolds
 Gilead Marilynne Robinson
 The Giver Lois Lowry
 The Godfather Mario Puzo
 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn
 Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell
 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
 Great Expectations Charles Dickens
 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift
 The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood
 Harry Potter (series) J.K. Rowling
 Hatchet (series) Gary Paulsen
 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
 The Help Kathryn Stockett
 The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy
Douglas Adams
 The Hunger Games (series) Suzanne Collins
 The Hunt for Red October Tom Clancy
 The Intuitionist Colson Whitehead
 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison
 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë
 The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan
 Jurassic Park Michael Crichton
 Left Behind (series) Tim LaHaye and
Jerry B. Jenkins
 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
 Little Women Louisa May Alcott
 Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry
 Looking for Alaska John Green
 The Lord of the Rings (series) J.R.R. Tolkien
 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold
 The Martian Andy Weir
 Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden
 Mind Invaders Dave Hunt
 Moby-Dick Herman Melville
 The Notebook Nicholas Sparks
 One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez
 Outlander (series) Diana Gabaldon
 The Outsiders S. E. Hinton
 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
 The Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan
 The Pillars of The Earth Ken Follett
 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
 Ready Player One Ernest Cline
 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier
 The Shack William P. Young
 Siddhartha Hermann Hesse
 The Sirens of Titan Kurt Vonnegut
 The Stand Stephen King
 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway
 Swan Song Robert R. McCammon
 Tales of The City (series) Armistead Maupin
 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston
 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
 This Present Darkness Frank. E. Peretti
 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
 The Twilight Saga (series) Stephenie Meyer
 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
 Watchers Dean Koontz
 The Wheel of Time (series) Robert Jordan and
Brandon Sanderson
 Where the Red Fern Grows Wilson Rawls
 White Teeth Zadie Smith
 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë

I have emphasized just a few of the above which I have read...

Personally, I would add a few classics, such as:
The Odyssey of Homer: Homer, the Richmond Lattimore translation. This is such a fun adventure story.
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Histories by Herodotus
also,
The Canterbury Tales
and,
Beowulf, especially when read aloud!

The Great American Read (cont'd)
 

Just looked at the list and realized that I wasn't clear about all the books that I have read, which may or may not interest some:
1984 by Orwell, which I won't read again
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Alice's... by Carroll
All of Agatha Christie's books
Anne of Green Gables
Another Country by Baldwin
Atlas Shrugged
Catch22
The Catcher in the Rye
the Auel series
I have all the series of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones
The Grapes of Wrath
Gulliver's Travels
I can't stand Atwood.... lol
Have read all of the Potter books
Conrad's Heart of Darkness ..."the horror, the horror" (Kurtz uttering it also in Apocalypse Now)
All of Tolkien's books
many of Marquez's books
quite a few of Austen's books
Siddhartha & Steppenwolf by Hesse
all of Vonnegut's books, anything sci-fi actually...
most of Hemingway
all of the Twilight books

I would also recommend any of Yasunari Kawabata's books, each book a work of art (shame he committed suicide...)
As well, any of V.S. Naipaul's books

"Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women"
by Kate Moore


"The incredible true story of the women who fought America's Undark danger

The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.

Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive ― until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.

But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.

Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives..."

Well-written book on a topic I was mostly unfamiliar with although some of the images will stay with you. Certainly makes me give pause to "newly discovered" things/processes that will help me lead a smart/futuristic lifestyle that claim to be perfectly "safe." Whatever "safe" means anymore.....


Katniss~~

Thanks for the reminder! I've just set my machine to record this!

I started this before and lost interest. I tried it again a few days ago, and while I am not loving it, I am able to stick with it. It's called The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. Elif Batuman is the author. She writes, or used to write, for The New Yorker. And her second book, a novel, was widely and well reviewed. It was a Pulitzer finalist. It's called The Idiot. From the reviews, some of it sounded so like my twenties that I decided not to check it out. I feel no need to revisit that decade.

The Google books blurb: I can see that some of the situations are humorous, but deeply funny, no.

I'm considering ordering this ..........
 

The Whip: a novel inspired by the story of Charley Parkhurst

Inspired by the true story of Charlotte "Charley" Parkhurst (1812-1879) who lived most of her extraordinary life as a man in the old west. As a young woman in Rhode Island, she fell in love with a runaway slave and had his child. The destruction of her family drove her west to California, dressed as a man, to track the killer.

Charley became a renowned stagecoach driver for Wells Fargo. She killed a famous outlaw, had a secret love affair, and lived with a housekeeper who, unaware of her true sex, fell in love with her. Charley was the first known woman to vote in America in 1868 (as a man). Her grave lies in Watsonville, California.

Or this one.......
 

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn


An enthralling historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.

Decisions decisions.........:glasses:

I am on the library waiting list for Barracoon: The Story of the Last Slave by Zora Neale Hurston.

Brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade—abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States.

I heard about it on NPR and I am excited to get it. I haven't read for pleasure (which I sorely miss) since starting school in January. I am hoping I can make time for it.

There was an excerpt of this book in the April 30-May 13 issue of New York Magazine. It looks will worth the wait :glasses:

It came in yesterday. Unfortunately, I can't't start it today because I have school work and yardwork.

I actually decided on.........
 

The Wife by Meg Wolitzer because the movie is coming out soon and it looks so very good!

I've just started this, but so far so good.

In the past I have not been fond of books where the wife has given up her dreams so the husband can realize and pursue his.

Caleb's Crossing - Geraldine Brooks

Interesting read so far.. Was skeptical but happy I bought it...

BBC The 100 Stories that Shaped the World
 

The BBC has published a list of 100 books that have shaped the world as follows:

Top 100

The list was determined via ranked ballots and first placed into descending order by number of critic votes, then into descending order by total critic points, then alphabetically (for 73 to 100, the titles listed are tied).

1. The Odyssey (Homer, 8th Century BC)
2. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852)
3. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818)
4. Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell, 1949)
5. Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe, 1958)
6. One Thousand and One Nights (various authors, 8th-18th Centuries)
7. Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes, 1605-1615)
8. Hamlet (William Shakespeare, 1603)
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez, 1967)
10. The Iliad (Homer, 8th Century BC)
11. Beloved (Toni Morrison, 1987)
12. The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri, 1308-1320)
13. Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare, 1597)
14. The Epic of Gilgamesh (author unknown, circa 22nd-10th Centuries BC)
15. Harry Potter Series (JK Rowling, 1997-2007)
16. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood, 1985)
17. Ulysses (James Joyce, 1922)
18. Animal Farm (George Orwell, 1945)
19. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë, 1847)
20. Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert, 1856)
21. Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Luo Guanzhong, 1321-1323)
22. Journey to the West (Wu Cheng'en, circa 1592)
23. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevksy, 1866)
24. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen, 1813)
25. Water Margin (attributed to Shi Nai'an, 1589)
26. War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy, 1865-1867)
27. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee, 1960)
28. Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys, 1966)
29. Aesop's Fables (Aesop, circa 620 to 560 BC)
30. Candide (Voltaire, 1759)
31. Medea (Euripides, 431 BC)
32. The Mahabharata (attributed to Vyasa, 4th Century BC)
33. King Lear (William Shakespeare, 1608)
34. The Tale of Genji (Murasaki Shikibu, before 1021)
35. The Sorrows of Young Werther (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774)
36. The Trial (Franz Kafka, 1925)
37. Remembrance of Things Past (Marcel Proust, 1913-1927)
38. Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)
39. Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison, 1952)
40. Moby-Dick (Herman Melville, 1851)
41. Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston, 1937)
42. To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf, 1927)
43. The True Story of Ah Q (Lu Xun, 1921-1922)
44. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
45. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy, 1873-1877)
46. Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad, 1899)
47. Monkey Grip (Helen Garner, 1977)
48. Mrs Dalloway (Virginia Woolf, 1925)
49. Oedipus the King (Sophocles, 429 BC)
50. The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka, 1915)
51. The Oresteia (Aeschylus, 5th Century BC)
52. Cinderella (unknown author and date)
53. Howl (Allen Ginsberg, 1956)
54. Les Misérables (Victor Hugo, 1862)
55. Middlemarch (George Eliot, 1871-1872)
56. Pedro Páramo (Juan Rulfo, 1955)
57. The Butterfly Lovers (folk story, various versions)
58. The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer, 1387)
59. The Panchatantra (attributed to Vishnu Sharma, circa 300 BC)
60. The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas (Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, 1881)
61. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Muriel Spark, 1961)
62. The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists (Robert Tressell, 1914)
63. Song of Lawino (Okot p'Bitek, 1966)
64. The Golden Notebook (Doris Lessing, 1962)
65. Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie, 1981)
66. Nervous Conditions (Tsitsi Dangarembga, 1988)
67. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
68. The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov, 1967)
69. The Ramayana (attributed to Valmiki, 11th Century BC)
70. Antigone (Sophocles, c 441 BC)
71. Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897)
72. The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K Le Guin, 1969)
73. A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, 1843)
74. América (Raúl Otero Reiche, 1980)
75. Before the Law (Franz Kafka, 1915)
76. Children of Gebelawi (Naguib Mahfouz, 1967)
77. Il Canzoniere (Petrarch, 1374)
78. Kebra Nagast (various authors, 1322)
79. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868-1869)
80. Metamorphoses (Ovid, 8 AD)
81. Omeros (Derek Walcott, 1990)
82. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1962)
83. Orlando (Virginia Woolf, 1928)
84. Rainbow Serpent (Aboriginal Australian story cycle, date unknown)
85. Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates, 1961)
86. Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe, 1719)
87. Song of Myself (Walt Whitman, 1855)
88. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884)
89. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain, 1876)
90. The Aleph (Jorge Luis Borges, 1945)
91. The Eloquent Peasant (ancient Egyptian folk story, circa 2000 BC)
92. The Emperor's New Clothes (Hans Christian Andersen, 1837)
93. The Jungle (Upton Sinclair, 1906)
94. The Khamriyyat (Abu Nuwas, late 8th-early 9th Century)
95. The Radetzky March (Joseph Roth, 1932)
96. The Raven (Edgar Allan Poe, 1845)
97. The Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie, 1988)
98. The Secret History (Donna Tartt, 1992)
99. The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats, 1962)
100. Toba Tek Singh (Saadat Hasan Manto, 1955)

The BBC link is as follows:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/201...aped-the-world

Just purchased the kindle edition of So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo.

This may be one of the few times a movie is a bit better than the book...I didn't hate it but the movie looks SO much better....