These Books Among Us

The Rover by Aphra Behn (400 pages) My Rating: 3 Stars Date Finished: 15 February 2015 Synopsis: "We are bought and sold like apes or monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools, and cowards, and the support of rogues"When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko’s noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn’s visit to Surinam, Oroonoko (1688) reflects the author’s romantic view of Native Americans as simple, superior peoples ‘in the first state of innocence, before men knew how to sin’. The novel also reveals Behn’s ambiguous attitude to African slavery – while she favoured it as a means to strengthen England’s power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality. This new edition of Oroonoko is based on the...

Asylum by Madeline Roux (310 pages) My Rating: 2.5 Stars Date Finished: 9 February 2015 Synopsis: Asylum is a thrilling and creepy photo-novel perfect for fans of the New York Times bestseller Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, New Hampshire College Prep is more than a summer program—it's a lifeline. An outcast at his high school, Dan is excited to finally make some friends in his last summer before college. But when he arrives at the program, Dan learns that his dorm for the summer used to be a sanatorium, more commonly known as an asylum. And not just any asylum—a last resort for the criminally insane. As Dan and his new friends, Abby and Jordan, explore the hidden recesses of their creepy summer home, they soon discover it's no coincidence that the three of them ended up here. Because the asylum holds the key to a terrifying past. And there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried. Featuring fou...

King Lear by William Shakespeare (288 pages) My Rating: 5 Stars Date Finished: 7 February 2015 Synopsis: Criticism provides thirteen major critical interpretations and three provocative adaptations and responses toKing Lear. Critical interpretation is provided by Samuel Johnson, Charles Lamb, Peter Brook, Michael Warren, Lynda E. Boose, Janet Adelman, and R. A. Foakes, among others. The adaptations and responses are by Nahum Tate, John Keats, and Edward Bond. A Selected Bibliography is also included. My Review: I really enjoyed this play. It is definitely one that I would recommend to anyone who likes Shakespearean tragedies!! The characters were very interestingly developed throughout the play. I really enjoyed seeing the development of the relationship between King Lear and his daughters. Also, seeing the characters fall deeper and deeper into their own insanity was very interesting as well. Act three of the play shows the audience even more of Lear’s descent into madn...

Twelfth Night: Or What You Will by William Shakespeare (256 pages) My Rating: 5 Stars Date Finished: 24 January 2015 Synopsis: Roger Warren & Stanley Wells (Editors) Twelfth Night is one of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays in the modern theatre, and this edition places particular emphasis on its theatrical qualities throughout. Peopled with lovers misled either by disguises or their own natures, it combines lyrical melancholy with broad comedy. The introduction analyses its many views of love and the juxtaposition of joy and melancholy, while the detailed commentary pays particular attention to its linguistic subtleties. Music is particularly important in Twelfth Night, and this is the only modern edition to offer material for all the music required in a performance. Publisher: Oxford University Press Paperback ISBN 9780199536092 My Review: I really enjoyed this play. I studied it in high school and I am studying it again in college. It is just so much fun. ...

Oedipus Rex by Sophoclese (86 pages) My Rating: 5 Stars Date Finished: 11 January 2015 Synopsis: Sophocles' Oedipus Rex has never been surpassed for the raw and terrible power with which its hero struggles to answer the eternal question, "Who am I?" The play, a story of a king who acting entirely in ignorance kills his father and marries his mother, unfolds with shattering power; we are helplessly carried along with Oedipus towards the final, horrific truth. To make Oedipus more accessible for the modern reader, our Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Classics includes a glossary of the more difficult words, as well as convenient sidebar notes to enlighten the reader on aspects that may be confusing or overlooked. We hope that the reader may, through this edition, more fully enjoy the beauty of the verse, the wisdom of the insights, and the impact of the drama. My Review: "...what man wins more happiness than just its shape and the ruin when that shape col...

Ron Carlson Writes a Story by Ron Carlson (112 pages) My Rating: 5 Stars Date Finished: 9 January 2015 Synopsis: Ron Carlson has been praised as “a master of the short story” (Booklist). In this book-length essay, he offers a full range of notes and gives rare insight into a veteran writer’s process by inviting the reader to watch over his shoulder as he creates the short story “The Governor’s Ball.” “This is a story of a story,” he begins, and proceeds to offer practical advice for creating a great story, from the first glimmer of an idea to the final sentence. Carlson urges the writer to refuse the outside distractions—a second cup of coffee, a troll through the dictionary—and attend to the necessity of uncertainty, the pleasures of an unfolding story. “The Governor’s Ball”—included in its entirety—serves as a fascinating illustration of the detailed anatomy of a short story. My Review: In Ron Carlson’s very insightful book Ron Carlson Writes a Story, writers are able ...

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas (404 pages) My Rating: 5 Stars Date Finished: 2 January 2015 Synopsis: The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass--and it's there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena's fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world. My Review: In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king's champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien. Oh my god!! If you have not picked this up and you like fantasy novels, do it right now. Stop what you are doing and read this book!!! It is full of badassery, not too much romantic stuff, and magic...