One of the best books I've read in the last 6 months is . .

[epistrophy]

Mansfield Park is actually a lot less “cloistered” than Austen’s other novels. The world of Mansfield Park - unlike that of, say, Pride and Prejudice and Emma - encompasses poverty, West Indian plantations, etc. But despite this - or maybe because of it - there probably aren’t too many Austen fans who consider Mansfield Park their favorite. It’s much less witty than the other novels, and Fanny isn’t as vivid or as complex as Austen’s more memorable characters.

[maineparent]

Epistrophy,
thanks for the above post…I think I remember reading that Fanny was Jane Austen’s favorite heroine, yes? Do you know?

Honestly, your comments remind me of why books matter… a great writer can take us places we otherwise will never ever get to… perhaps Mansfield Park does not resonate as much as her other novels because she had never been to West Indian plantations … she had not “lived” poverty… I have not read it yet…but will get to it eventually…

I have felt John Adams’ urgency in getting to France, chosing to ride over the mountains in Spain on a donkey…thanks to David McCullough. He took me down the Nile with Teddy Roosevelt as a young boy in Mornings on Horseback and also down an Amazon tributary in The River of Doubt. I almost felt like swatting at bugs during some of that story…they seemed so real and pervasive.

The young boy in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close throws off a comment early on, over the sadness of losing his father in one of the 9/11 planes, about a day being tough, having his “heavy boots” on… I think of that a lot since closing the covers on that book.

We never know which authors will resonate with us… I am just infinitely grateful that there will always be another who is writing for ME!! That is why I often will peruse the section in the smaller, independent bookstores where their employees display THEIR favorite books… it is like paning for gold… sometimes there are valuable nuggets there, as there are in threads like this… vs bestseller lists… I have not yet gotten The Madonnas of Leningrad, but, it is on a little post it note here on my deskpad… so many folks here read it and recommended it…

[epistrophy]

I think I remember reading that Fanny was Jane Austen’s favorite heroine, yes? Do you know?

I don’t know (though this may be [like so many other things these days] something that I once knew, one way or the other, but no longer have readily available in the old memory bank).

Austen did say this about one of her other character’s, Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet:

I must confess that I think her as delightful a character as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know.

[Jane</a> Austen’s Writings](<a href=“http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/janewrit.html]Jane”>Jane Austen's Writings)

And here’s more about Fanny and Mansfield Park:

Mansfield Park is the most controversial and perhaps the least popular of Austen’s major novels. Regency critics praised the novel’s wholesome morality, but many modern readers find Fanny’s timidity and disapproval of the theatricals difficult to sympathise with and reject the idea (made explicit in the final chapter) that she is a better person for the relative privations of her childhood. Jane Austen’s own mother thought Fanny “insipid”,[1] and many other readers have found her priggish and unlikeable.[2] Other critics point out that she is a complex personality, perceptive yet given to wishful thinking, and that she shows courage and grows in self-esteem during the latter part of the story. Austen biographer Claire Tomalin, who is generally rather critical of Fanny, argues that “it is in rejecting obedience in favour of the higher dictate of remaining true to her own conscience that Fanny rises to her moment of heroism.”[3] But Tomalin reflects the ambivalence that many readers feel towards Fanny when she also writes: “More is made of Fanny Price’s faith, which gives her the courage to resist what she thinks is wrong; it also makes her intolerant of sinners, whom she is ready to cast aside.”

[Mansfield</a> Park (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansfield_Park_(novel)]Mansfield”>Mansfield Park - Wikipedia)

[jude_36]

I haven’t finished reading the thread, but when I read the title, my first thought was ‘The Lost’. I loved that book. My grandmother was born in Poland, and while we have no ties to the holocaust that I know of, reading the speech patterns of the interviewees made me think of my Grandmother. It was a nice added bit of nostalgia in an otherwise already excellent book.

I will be subscribing to this thread, I’m always looking for good books!

I also second ‘A thousand splendid suns’. A very good read.

[cottonwood513]

josiejoe

No, I wasn’t particularly interested in autism. I just happened to come across “Running with Walker” and it was great. For instance, “Marley and Me” was a best seller (essentially the same story) but I think “Running with Walker” is a better book. But who’s heard of it?

I’ll watch for “Sonrise”. Thanks

[mathmom]

Back on the autism theme - two good novels: Speed of the Dark by Elizabeth Moon. She’s more known for very enjoyable space opera sci-fi, this one is more serious, about a young man who gets the opportunity to have a special treatment to cure autism, but has to consider whether he will lose as much as he’ll gain. It won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. The other is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon. It came out the same year (2003).

As for Jane Austen, my favorite is Persuasion. I tried to reread Mansfield Park recently, but confess I got bored.

[Jolynne_Smyth]

Glad I’m not the only one not enamoured of Mansfield Park. I think I’ll rent the DVD before my book club (have never done that before…!). Since I now read less than I used to, I find I really have to want to be in the world created by a book. I just can’t seem to care about the overly precise & subtly mannered world of J. Austen with it’s limited options for women.

[cottonwood513]

Meanwhile, if anyone has read “Running with Walker” by Robert Hughes I would like to hear your opinion.

Next I am going to try and get my hands on “Windy City” by Scott Simon, a novel about politics in Chicago.

“Marley and Me” is being made into a movie. As I said in prior post, “Running with Walker” is a much better read.

[dbwes]

Halfway through “The Known World” by Edward P. Jones. What a book. Looks at free blacks who actually owned slaves in Virginia. Also looks at a wide cast of characters, interlacing present and future, to show the ramifications in lives and relationships skewed by the institution of slavery. Really, really good.

[epistrophy]

Regarding Edward P. Jones, his own life story is, I think, unusually interesting (as well as inspiring):

He was born and raised in Washington, D.C. His childhood was spent in poverty. His mother, Jeanette, migrated from the South in the 1940s (at the beginning of the migration that saw about 5 million African-Americans relocate to the North); although she was illiterate herself, she encouraged her son’s bookishness, recognizing the importance of education; his Jamaican father left when Jones was three, around the same time Jones’s younger brother, who is mentally ■■■■■■■■, was institutionalized. Jones, his mother (who worked as a dishwasher and cleaner) and younger sister Eunice, moved 18 times during the next 18 years. He says, “Each place was worse than the place before”. When he was 12 or 13 he simply stopped going outside to play with other children; “I would just come home from school and watch TV and read books” At first he read comics but then he discovered Black Boy and Native Son, both by Richard Wright at his aunt’s house, and from there progressed to James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and Truman Capote. He says, “I was quite struck by the Southern authors, both white and black”.

With the guidance of Joseph Owens, a young Catholic missionary, Jones applied to Holy Cross College in Massachusetts, where he was accepted and awarded a scholarship - becoming the first person in his family to attend college. He graduated with a degree in English and then returned to Washington where he worked odd jobs while looking after his mother who had had several heart attacks. She died in 1975 and Jones hit rock bottom - he couldn’t find a job and was homeless. Eventually he wrote to his sister, Eunice, asking for $15 so he could take a bus to New York where he hoped to improve his prospects - the same week the money arrived he found a job in Washington working for Science magazine and received a message from Essence magazine offering him $400 for a story he’d submitted a year earlier. These breaks helped him get his life back on track and he worked steadily for a few years in Washington before enrolling in the MFA program at the University of Virginia. When he graduated in 1981 he took a job with Tax Analysts in Arlington, VA, where he worked for 18 years as a proofreader, and then as a writer, summarizing tax stories for the news.

Meanwhile he wrote - in 1992 Lost In The City was published and he started work on The Known World. He says that he spent 10 years brooding over the story, writing the entire thing in his head, so when it came time to writing it down he was able to produce the entire 432 manuscript in just three months. All Aunt Hagar’s Children, a collection of short stories, was published in September 2006.

All his books to date have been dedicated to his mother, Jeanette.

[Edward</a> Jones - biography, plus book reviews & excerpts.](<a href=“Edward P. Jones author biography”>Edward P. Jones author biography)

[mafool]

I just finished Three Cups of Tea.

What a book! I had sort of resisted reading it, because I wasn’t in the mood for a serious, good-for-me-so-I-ought-to-read-it sort of book just now. It is good for you. You should read it. But that’s beside the point. It is also a great story.

I recommend it to all.

[Grande_Antilles]

I read in teh time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez. It’s a beautiful book. I also read Mountain behound Mountain by Tracy kidder

Are kids allowed to invade the parent’s forum?
Beacause that’s what I just did

[jude_36]

As long as you behave yourself Grande…

[Grande_Antilles]

Alright Jude

[ebeeeee]

Picking back up this thread…I just finished March by Geraldine Brooks, really enjoyed it. Loving Frank, a novel based on Frank Lloyd Wright…excellent book thought my female friends liked it better than the guys
On the books about autism from a bit back in this thread, I loved Born on A Blue Day.
Desperately seeking a new book now…anybody got a great idea out there?
Unfortunately I read a LOT so there isn’t much I haven’t read unless it is fairly new or fairly obscure.

[epistrophy]

Unfortunately I read a LOT . . . .

Unfortunately???

(I only wish I had more time to read.)

[alwaysamom]

ebeee, have you read The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt?

[ebeeeee]

alwaysamom,
yes. I loved it. I say unfortunately because it is hard to find something to read sometimes. Also because I read a lot because DH works a lot. Right now he is working 7 days a week. It is 8pm on Sunday night and he is still at work…

[Mr_Payne]

Den of Thieves by Stewart
I am Charlotte Simmons by Wolfe (should be mandatory reading for all high school seniors)

[alwaysamom]

ebee, I also read a lot and sometimes get to the point of reading books which wouldn’t ordinarily be on my ‘list’. Have you ever read any of Elizabeth Berg’s books? When I’m in the mood for an easy, pleasurable read, she is one author who is often at the top of the pile. I’m currently reading one of her most recent, We Are All Welcome Here. It, like many of her books, is a character driven story populated with strong, interesting female characters. She ‘writes’ women extremely well. The first of hers I read was Talk Before Sleep, the story of a woman with cancer who is surrounded by a group of supportive friends. A close friend of mine who was then battling breast cancer chose it for our book club. We all enjoyed it so much that we read several more Elizabeth Berg books through the years, and have read most on our own ever since. One of my Ds is also a Berg fan and has also read most of them.

A few others I’ve enjoyed recently - Atonement by Ian McEwan, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, All That Matters by Wayson Choy (his The Jade Peony is also excellent), Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, The Iris Trilogy, A Memoir of Iris Murdoch by John Bayley, Until I Find You by John Irving, The March by E.L. Doctorow, Dorothy Parker by Marian Meade, and The Rotter’s Club by Jonathan Coe.

One other fun series our family has enjoyed are the Bookman stories by John Dunning. I think there are four or five, you can search his name on Amazon and get the titles. Good mysteries with the added touch of the main character being a ‘bookman’, a collector of rare books. Very interesting.