Henry James's, "The Bostonians," is a simple, but increasingly entertaining love story set in the years soon after the end of the Civil War. Basil Ransom, a true Southern gentleman from Mississippi, has moved North (specifically, to New York City) to try and start a career away from the impoverished South of the Reconstruction days. Shortly after moving North, he pays a visit, at her behest, to the Boston house of his distant cousin, Olive Chancellor. Olive, a stalwart in the women's rights movement of the time, invites Basil to her home in order to offer help and assistance to her Southern cousin, but she also wishes to save him from the flawed ways he certainly must have taken on growing up in the South. Her self-seeking, ulterior motives fail miserably, of course.

It is through Olive that Basil Ransom meets Verena Tarrant, the young woman who has left her lower middle-class family to move in with and be molded by Olive. Verena has a tremendous speaking ability which caught Olive's (and the other women's (womyn's?) movement leaders') attention. But ultimately, Verena also catches Basil's attention... not for her feminist diatribes, but for her beauty and the passion of her speeches. Basil is instantly struck by Verena, and from this point onward the plot focuses as Basil attempts to seek out his love interest who is highly guarded by Olive, Verena's parents, and several others.

The dialogue between Olive and her friends with Basil Ransom, is a constant back and forth that is civil on the surface, but boiling with hostility underneath the social niceties. While Basil is always cool and focused as he tracks the object of his love, Olive Chancellor only becomes more paranoid as she sees that she is gradually losing her young charge... to a Southern Neanderthal. "The Bostonians" meanders through the first couple hundred pages with witty dialogue between the alien Basil and his new peers, but as his focus intensifies, so does the plot. James draws all this circling and stalking into a final, climactic scene that many will be cheering, but one that many modern-day feminists and their sympathizers will be cursing.

The astonishing thing about this book -- and a lot of Henry James's writing -- is his insight into the problems of women. This book deals with the problem of independence and freedom. Most of us, let's admit it, love the idea of being swept off our feet by some competent, assertive male. It's a real turn-on. If you don't believe it, check out how many successful professional women secretly read historical romances by the boxload. The problem comes the next morning when he starts to take control, bit by bit, of your entire life. In this book you have Olive, who is not, I think, a lesbian but someone who is very lonely and doesn't trust men and Verena, who likes men just fine, but is, for the moment anyway, under the spell of Olive and her feminist ideology. Are these our only options? Verena Makes her choice, but James notes that the tears she sheds may not, unhappily, be her last.

When he says the "Bostonians" he means "the lesbians." I was pretty interested in the story of a Boston marriage, but it got increasingly mean-spirited toward the end, when the dashing right-wing Mississippian convinces the young woman to leave the older one and a full suffrage lecture-hall and run away with him-- she finds it seductive to be told she must have no will of her own.

I went looking for criticism of this book and found little in Gale, but two essays from 1990s by Wendy Lesser and Alison Lurie. Lesser argues against the feminist line that the book is a misogynist polemic; she responds that Olive (the lesbian) and Basil (the Mississippian) are both complex characters, sometimes weak, sometimes strong and sympathetic. (She quotes Hardwick that James is our best female novelist because his women are powerful and interesting.) Lurie looks at the novel as more about politics than gender: James came home from Europe and found he hated America; showed the South re-conquering the North in Basil's conquest of Verena.

I disagree with Lesser: Basil is shown as naive and occasionally weak but dashing and full-hearted -- I'm sure he is an idealized self-portrait of James. Olive is honest and principled but so bleak and unhappy that her love is purely destructive. Her strength lies less in her principles (Mrs. Birdseye after all is equally principled but utterly weak) than in her vaulting ambition. She reminds me of Dixon's Thaddeus Stevens in The Klansman -- passionate, scheming, perversely principled, but essentially evil. Both come from Milton's Satan, seen as a Yankee.

Which brings me to Lurie's version. I agree with her that the novel is about politics, but disagree that he was writing against America -- I think he was just writing against Boston. The hostility the novel met at the time stemmed from his nasty portrait of the old transcendalist Elizabeth Peabody (his minor character Mrs. Birdseye); this is a less irrelevant reaction than critics portray it, since she's a stand-in for everything he despises about his own Boston roots, a hatred which drives the novel. An equally weak but even more despicable character is Verena's father, a mystical fraud whose nomadic career has certain resemblances to James's father's -- resemblances strengthened if Verena is modeled on Alice James. The Boston reform tradition is alternately weak-minded and hard-edged, and basically loveless -- a spirit of drafty wet lecturehalls. Where Basil is hot-blooded -- he feels about Mississippi a tragic love he can't bear to speak of in conversation -- Olive's New England feeling is only cold philosophy.

How real is the political alternative which Basil represents? We see much less of him than of Olive; James knew Boston but not Mississippi. But I think James like some of his peers yearned for a certain reactionary romanticism which northern intellectuals associated with the South -- a Burkean spirit of cavaliers and kings. (Basil's name means "king," and his emerging career is writing political essays said to be hundreds of years out of date.) Basil's defeat of Olive to marry Verena -- he imagines his own seizure of her from the podium of Fanuiel Hall as a political assassination, with shades of John Wilkes Booth -- is clearly a re-conquest of the North by the old South. What he offers for an American future is less Enlightenment, more Middle Ages -- less rights, more responsiblities -- less cold charity, more warm friendship.

James/ Basil reminds me of Henry Adams in the "Education." On the one hand, Adams saw the warm (mildly homoerotic) friendship of exceptional men (modeled on himself and John Hay) as a strategy for national progress. On the other, Adams developed a similarly St. Gaudensian aesthetic of the medieval -- the cathedral against the dynamo. This was the first, aesteticist reaction of the northern elite to the soullessness of postbellum America, which we forget because it was replaced by Teddy Roosevelt's more muscular alternative.

"Year of Wonders" tells the story of Anna, an 18 year old mother-of-two, who lives to witness a horrible period in England's history: the Plague. In the period of one year, she watches as her friends, neighbors and family succumb to this horrible disease. The novel is as much about the Plague as it is about the struggle of mankind to survive in the face of such overwhelming horror.

I'm extremely fascinated by the plague, so I found the subject matter of the book captivating. I also thought the historical research was impeccable. The way Brooks described life in a small village in the 17th century was enchanting. The characterization was good, for the most part, as well. I also really liked the ending.

However, I disliked the writing style. It was flowery, poetic, lyrical, but too much so. I found that reading "Year of Wonders" took a lot of my concentration, and I found myself easily bored by the flowery descriptions. I also had a hard time keeping track of all the villagers. There were so many names mentioned in passing, and when they were brought up again chapters later, it was hard to remember who the person was, and why they were important.

Unfortunately, I also didn't like any of the characters very much. I was unable to relate to Anna. She seemed too modern at times, while other times she would cower in fear at the slightest threat. For a "strong" heroine, her character traits were surprising and unrealistic. Elinor seemed like the incarnation of a saint. She was utterly perfect, and once again, unrealistic. Mr. Mompellion rubbed me the wrong way from the start, and it became increasingly clear to me that I didn't like him at all as the book drew to a close. At least his actions and dark side are explained.

If you're looking for a light-hearted novel, this isn't it. I would recommend it only for those who enjoy flowery descriptions and poetic language, and are drawn to the subject of the plague.

"Year of Wonders", by Geraldine Brooks. Audio Cassette version read by Josephine Bailey, Books on Tape/Penguin Putnam, Inc. Book Number 5708

Set in England, in1665-1666, this book recounts in vivid detail the effects of the plague on a little village whose main industry is lead mining. On one level, it is entirely too detailed account of how so many people sickened and died from the plague, spread by rodents and their fleas. On another level, it is a love story of the village minister and his wife, Eleanor. On a third level, it is a story of the achievements of the young housemaid, Anna, who becomes the central character recoding the events of the "Year of Wonders".

The minister's wife, Eleanor, recognizes the intellectual ability of the recently widowed Anna, and begins to teach her reading and writing. Anna's husband had died in a lead mine cave-in. The young minister, who takes the place of the older Puritan cleric, preaches a sermon which causes the village population to quarantine themselves after they discover they are infected with plague. During this year of quarantine, Anna, the housewife, grows from a simple village girl, (who suffered the loss of husband and then her two sons), into an established mid-wife, with a knowledge of medicinal herbs, the ability to ease both child birth and the birthing of lambs, and a the ability to understand the motives of so many of her neighbors.

In some ways, this book is too gory: the details of the birthing of both lambs and children are far too vivid. The details of the death of Anna's father, as punishment for cheating his neighbors when he dug the graves for the dead, are too vivid. And, the attempt to drown the newborn daughter of Lady Bradford is described too vividly. Some of this I ascribe to the ability of the reader, Josephine Bailey, whose skill in making you see and feel the scene is a wonder in itself. Ms. Bailey, the reader for the audio book, has a wide vocal range, so that you can almost hear the preacher exhorting the villagers to establish their self-imposed quarantine. I enjoyed the book as I commuted around I-495, the ring road around Boston.

"Book of Wonders" is everything a historical novel should be. It is based upon the true events of a small village which isolated itself with the outbreak of plague; it has finely drawn and believable characters; and the writing is of a style that you could almost imagine it was really written at the time (please don't let this latter point put you off - the writing is not in any way archaic, as is often the trend these days).

It is also however, profoundly sad, and I found myself weeping with the characters at their loss in an early part of the novel. I always think that is is a powerful book that can make you laugh or cry.

The story of the people of this small village and their trials and tribulations in this terrible time is absolutely mesmerising. We watch them cling to their faith in God, and then turn to earlier more earthy superstitions to help them deal with the wave of death that has struck so many of them down. We also watch the development of the narrator from a simple village girl who thirsts for knowledge into the strong character she is by the end of the novel.

Some of the earlier reviewers have commented that the end seems a little pat, almost as if the author wanted to finish the book and be done with it. I must admit that it doesn't finish the way I would have liked it to, but having said that, I truly do not believe that it in any way takes away from the mastery of the book.

It is a fascinating, well written and well researched book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Josephine Chia's book 'Frog under a coconut shell' is a wonderful book. This book is indeed a tribute to her mother's courage, vision, and perseverance under daunting circumstances. She writes that she is her mother's hope and dreams and the readers of this book will agree that she has fulfilled her mother's dreams.

I have been living here, in Singapore, for the past 27 years and yet it is fascinating to read about Josephine's account of her life and experiences in Singapore during the 1950s and 1960s. There's no doubt Josephine is a master storyteller. She glides smoothly from one decade to another with amazing ease. Her superb skill in describing places and events is evident throughout the book. She tells the story in a captivating manner in her unique voice. It is a very interesting, informative, and touching book. Every good book is supposed to leave a lasting impression on reader's mind and this book does it beautifully.

The book is a tribute to a mother, who had the foresight, despite her own limited circumstances, to see that only eduction could offer her daughter the chance to escape from the confinement of village life in Singapore in the60s. Her conviction is so strong that she defies her husband, who believes that educating women is a waste if rice money.
The book therefore is a journey. For the daughter and her siblings it is a journey from poverty to being well off. For the mother it is a journey from fighting for her children to the sadness of Alzheimer.
It is obvious that it is a book written from the heart and the special relationship that exists between the eldest surviving daughter and her mother is wonderful to read. Although Ms Chia writes very honestly about the ravages of Alzheimer, the book is never depressing. Instead the reader encounters love, hope and the determination to overcome all difficulties, whatever the hardships on the way.
At the same time Ms Chia paints a picture of a Singapore that few Europeans will have encountered, even if they happened to be there at that time. It is a lifestyle lost forever but all the more worth recording.

This book is about an enduring love between the author, who was born in Singapore but who now lives much of the time in England, and her mother. The author cleverly combines a social history of Singapore in the 1950's and 1960's with a story about her own childhood community and its impoverished conditions. She emphasizes the forward thinking by her mother who, despite her own lack of education, poverty and family pressures, fought for her children to have a good education. Many years later, her mother becomes incapacitated by Alzheimer's disease and this decline is well documented by the author. I found this book to be very interesting and despite a few irrelevancies it was well written and informative both about Singaporean life and the problems of the disease.

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* * * * *Josephine Tey writes clever mystery stories, but this is really very different. It is a "second look" at the history of the supposedly villainous King Richard III. It becomes absolutely fascinating and more absorbing than any "who - dun - it".
I didn't know the history of Richard, beyond the "fact" that he killed the two little princes to secure his hold on the throne. You don't need to be a history buff- all mystery lovers will enjoy this book!
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The book starts out with Inspector Grant recuperating from an injury, and terribly bored lying in a hospital bed. His lady friend brings him an interesting mix of photographs and portraits to amuse him. Grant occupies his time studying the faces, and testing his skill at recognizing the guilty. He becomes fascinated with the portrait of Richard, who he hadn't recognized, and had classified him as a victim, not a killer. He gets more history books to "remind himself" of the facts, and finds contradictions and hints that the "History" we all believe may be an elaborate lie. .
~ -~
Following Grant's hunt for clues, and feeling his suspicion of some of those who survived to "rewrite" history is truly a wonderful journey.
. This book definitely convinced me that the "history" of Richard III needs a second look.
* * * * *
~ Whether you're interested in English history, or just love a good mystery, I definitely recommend this book with 5 stars * * * * * for an absorbing read

Since the winner writes the history books, it's not surprising most people believe that Richard III was evil. According to Sir Thomas More and Shakespeare, he had various members of his family killed, including his poor little nephews, so that he could be king. It's important to remember that much of what we think we know about Richard was written during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I -- who were on the throne as the direct result of the defeat of Richard. To justify the Tudors (Henry's father, I believe) seizing power, Richard had to be cast as the bad guy. We may never know what actually happened, but Josephine Tey presents a different look into history using actual letters and documents from that time. It all starts with a modern-day homicide detective who prides himself on being able to read faces. When he sees Richard's portrait (without knowing who it is), he doesn't pick it as the face of an evil murderer. I've seen Richard's portrait in the National Portrait Gallery in London -- and I think Tey's character, although fictional, may be on to something.

Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard is injured and laid up .... and bored out of his mind. A friend knows he is interested in faces and brings him a pile of portraits, one of which triggers his interest in the reputed murder of the Little Princes by their uncle Richard, the last Plantagenet to sit on the throne of England. Faced with a disparity between his perception of the man and his reported actions, Grant finds himself compelled to investigate the murders, albeit from a hospital bed four hundred years away.

I had heard about this book for years and finally got round to reading it. I am so glad I did. It is a fun armchair mystery about a fascinating subject, Tey introduces enough refutory information to make you want to learn more about Richard III, and all of the characters -- from protagonist Grant to affable walk-ons -- are vivid and memorable.

A real pleasure to read.

"Damaged people are the worst because they know they can survive." Dangerous is a good film that examines the dark side of obsessions. Jeremy Irons portrays a british government official who becomes obsessed with his son's fiance played by Juliette Binoche. The result is a film that only partially succeeds.

I had several problems with the film one being Irons motivation to become involved with this woman in the first place. A look and phone-call and then BAM! OK... but why was he so willing to jump into the dark waters? Power? Lust? Carelessness? Boredom? And herein lies the major weakness of the film. The film deals almost exclusively with the obsesson of Iron's character with Binoche but does not deal with the obsession of the mother (Iron's wife) with her son. Her relationship is clearly destructive and unhealthy but all the damage she inflicts under the guise of her love for her son never finds a voice. No fault falls on the mother when her obsession might well explain both the son's and father's weaknesses. At one part the son is talking about his family life saying that although it was good it lacked passion. His mother then replies that it is probably her fault and he replies that he rather thinks it's his father's. It's a careless and misdirecting remark and a sadly missed plot point.

As you may expect there are many sex scenes. I don't know what I was expecting but many made me laugh. They seemed so ridiculous and absurdly physical. I rather think Binoche must have suffered some bruising as a result of Iron's flailing.

While this film is meant to portray the damage that a traditional obsession (i.e. an affair) can have, it also begs to be seen from the the alternate perspective of a mother's obsession for her son. I am disappointed that Malle didn't have the courage to pursue this theme more vigorously.

Hart manages to do what few authors can-- make a central character capable of drawing disgust and sympathy from the audience at the same time. _Damage_ is reminiscent to me of _Lolita_ and the middle-aged MP is quite similar to Nabokov's Humbert Humbert (small wonder that Jeremy Irons was selected to play both men on film).
The plot is something like this: Stephen Fleming is a bored, stuffed-shirt politician. He is smart and successful with a loving family but he is slowly smothering from his life of routine. When Anna Barton comes along, he is drawn in by how different she is. Anna and Stephen begin a passionate affair quickly and it escalates with even more rapidity. They take more and more risks until finally, Martyn, Anna's fiance and Stephen's son, catches them. Obviously, the game is over and the characters disperse. Anna returns to the only person who can truly comfort her in times of crisis and Stephen loses the outwardly perfect life he once had.
For the most part, this novel kept my undivided attention. I was able to finish it quickly and have read it several times since. Though other novels that deal with forbidden love have been recommended to me, I have not found any that I enjoy quite as much as _Damage_. True, the prose is sparse though not "joined-up" as one reviewer quipped. I am not put off by minimalism in literature or art so I found the unencumbered text to be refreshing. Others will disagree and wish Hart had provided more, but I think all of the necessary details are included with style.

DAMAGE takes a powerful look at beyond-your-control obsession and it's consequences. Not since BODY HEAT have I been more taken with a femme fatale. As many other reviewers have pointed out, the title is loaded with meaning. If you've seen this film as many times as I have, you might come to the conclusion that there could be no better title. The line "Remember, damaged people are dangerous..." is the major theme of this film.

Judging from some of the negative reviews, this movie has infuriated some, who primarily say they didn't find it believable or who have no sympathy for the two characters caught up in the affair. I must argue that this definitely IS a five star film. Perhaps the key to savoring it is to look at the social class of these characters and the psychology of everyone involved. I would go so far as to suggest you watch it twice. The first time, watch it for the thoroughly intriguing story. The second time, (since you now know what's going to happen) study Jeremy Irons and Juliet Binoche's body language. Consider the type of man Fleming is at the film's beginning and who he becomes. Concentrate on secondary characters like Mrs Fleming and her daughter and Fleming's secretary. You'll see how they were used to convey the sense of mistrust and foreboding. The appearance of Anna's mother is also compelling. The warning she gives Fleming in the car does much to address how important body language is in this film. Most American films seem very heavy handed when dealing with matters of the heart and culturally American actors seem to be obtuse when conveying passion. For the most part, they seem completely incapable of the delicate sensuality so necessary for a story like this to unravel. The combination of director Louis Malle and artists Juliet Binoche, Jeremy Irons and Miranda Richardson (none of them American) should clue you in to the promise that this film can deliver. DAMAGE starring Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Meg Ryan and Gwyneth Paltrow would have been a mess. This film relies on visual sensuality and needed a femme fatale as strong as Juliette Binoche (whose beauty is as legendary as Ingrid Bergman's) to make the obsession plausible. Jeremy Irons is thoroughly genius and believable as a man who is practically dying of ennui until the mysterious Anna awakens him. His passion for her so consuming, that even when he has lost everything, her photograph becomes the focal part of his dwelling. Miranda Richardson's performance is subtle but monumental in establishing the propriety and good breeding of Mrs Fleming. She practically steals the whole show at film's end. During her outburst she is hysterical with rage but manages to tell Fleming "you are not a bad man...". The importance of this again, shows how Fleming's need for Anna completely outweighs his conscience.

I wholeheartedly recommend DAMAGE to anyone who says "it's been a long time since I've seen a good movie." I would give this film ten stars if I could. In addition, you may want to check out the book by Josephine Hart, whose written images were so vivid that Louis Malle insisted on bringing the book to life.

Izzy, Willy-Nilly is a good, thought-provoking book directed to high school students. It deals with issues that teenagers face everyday, including drunk-driving, friendship, and indifference. Izzy, Willy-Nilly is about a sophomore in high school, Izzy, who accepts a date with a senior, Marco. They go to a party and Marco drinks too much. On the drive home, they crash into a tree. Although Marco recieves minor injuries, Izzy loses a leg, and her life is changed forever. At 15, Izzy was the pretty, popular cheerleader from a rich family, but the accident changes everything. Her friends and family start treating her differently, and everywhere she goes people stare at her. She is no longer the once popular cheerleader, but the object of everyone's pity. Through hard work and perseverence, Izzy learns to cope and adjust to her disability. This book is definitely for every high school student to read. I could relate to many of the issues discussed in this book. This book totally made me think about how lucky I am to be healthy and fit.

I read this book as a summer reading assignment, and I was totally amazed at how good it was. It is about this high school girl named Izzy who is involved in a drunk driving crash caused by a senior named Marco. Izzy's lower right leg is brutally injured and she is forced to have it amputated. She feels really depressed, and her friends don't seem to want to visit her. Then this girl named Rosamunde who isn't as popular as Izzy comes by to visit often and they become friends. Rosamunde, who is a very straight-forward person with a unique sense of humor, helps Izzy get back on her feet and cope with her disability. I highly recommend this book to anyone, even if you don't like to read. I enjoyed it very much.

I have read many of Voights books, but this one I definetly liked best.
I'm seventeen now, but when I first read it I was 15.I must say that now I like it even more then the first time I read it.

The book is about a 15 year old girl Isabol Lingard who loses a leg in a car accident. It all happens as she is coming home from a party, unfourtunetly her date Marco drank to much and runs his car in to a tree- an elm.
Its a hard struggle of a young women who's life suddenly became a wreck. She pretends in front of her family( parents, two older brothers and younger sister), and friends( Lisa, Suzy and Lauren) that every thing is ok as if nothing had happened.
Pretty soon she makes friends with a girl Rasamunda, someone she never noticed at shool before.
Izzy is very brave and with the help of her new friend goes back to school. She knows everybody is staring at her, at her leg and a half, but there is nothing she can do.

This is a wonderful book for everyone. After reading it you start noticing how lucky you are to be healty, have two legs.
For Izzy its too late for a normal life even though she's trying hard, but this book can be a lesson for other people.
It's a story about how driving drunk can wreak one's life.
Be sure to read it.
Cynthia Voight thank you very, very much for this special book.
I will keep Izzy in my heart for the rest of my life.

Rulfo decided that in just one short, potent book, he coud summarised the essence of literarure. So he wrote Pedro Paramo. We know the story: Preciado's quest for his father (nothing new here!) But the style, the verse, the rythm, the simple, complicated and rich text, obliges you to read till the end.

Do you think that Comala is an invention? Isn't more misteriuos to think that the town is somewhere deep in Mexico? Perhaps you can meet Juan, and all the other ghosts (?) that make Comala so irresistible.

After this novel, Rulfo didnot inked a new line: what was the case. He approached utter perfection, and like Deadalus, burnt with its sun, and understood that he had achieved what other, more "prolific" authors, will never do.

Pedro Paramo was born almost together with "One Hundred Years of Solitude", and 50 years later we are still searching for Paramo and for a Buendia: perhaps they are together, fighting a lost war, or toasting for our good health, with a bottle of tequila, in a town that does not exist, in a place that we only can imagine, in a time whose only virtue is repeating itself, till we find them, and join the party.

Pedro Paramo is, without a doubt, the strangest and most original book I have ever read. The story focuses on the character of Juan Preciado and his search for his origins after the death of his mother.

The flawless writing is both surrealistic and impressionistic and the story Rulfo tells is the most horrifying I have ever read.

The plot of Pedro Paramo contains many shifts in time that might be confusing for some readers. So might the story's many layers of complexity. Is Pedro Paramo simply a story of unrelieved horror, or is it a metaphor for Latin America itself? Perhaps it is both.

The book may scare the daylights out of you, but the story never lags. On the contrary, it picks up pace as it evolves toward an inevitable, though not predictable, ending.

Although Juan Rulfo wrote many short stories, Pedro Paramo is his only novel. It is definitely a masterpiece and definitely one of a very different order. Pedro Paramo may shock you, horrify you or leave you feeling bewildered, but it will certainly be a completely different story from anything you've ever read before.

Pedro Paramo is one of the greatest books in Mexican literature. It captures the very essence of Mexico and its magic and mystery.

I've read reviews of people who say they don't understand the book, that it's dark, confusing, depressing, etc. But you have to keep in mind that this book was writen by a Mexican writer, and this is the vision of the universe we Mexicans have. It's a vision of a world full of ghosts, full or mysteries, full or things that have no answer. A timeless world where present, future and past some times are hard to tell apart. This is a book that speaks about the very heart of Mexico itself.

My recommendations to the readers of this book: keep a notebook and a pencil at hand. You'd want to make some brief notes about who's who. That helps a lot throughout the story.

Just free your mind and remember: this book is a vision of the world through the eyes of a Mexican and maybe that's why some non-Latin people find it so hard to understand. But it's a very enjoyable story and a book you shouldn't miss.

I think this book did not mention an everyday's adolescent lifestyle, but it was an interesting view of a young girl. The title of the book summarises what the book and the character are all about , but it gives you explanations on how she finds that she is rich in love. The main character, Lucille, is an adolescent who seems like is 40 because of all her worries. She is not an adolescent who seems to enjoy life but rather enjoys having to save relationships. Overall, it was an interesting and at some times exciting to read. I wouldn't say its a book that will inspire your life but it is a book about finding yourself in the character.

Rich in Love is a book that any American teenager can relate to. I am a 17-year-old girl and completely understand some of the feelings the main character, Lucille, has. Like most high school students, she has to deal with so many obstacles in her life. But it is Lucille's idea of love that gives her the most trouble. She does not know how to deal with all of the love she has to give. I think that this is a great book for people my age because we are beginning to deal with first loves and don't really know how to handle it. I enjoy how the book gave me different views on love. I was able to learn the importance of love related to my life. I usually do not enjoy many books but this one really kept my attention. I think it is a great read for anyone with a lot of love.

The novel Rich in Love by Josephine Humphreys is a great book filled with many answers to the mysterious feelings of growing adolescents. The character Lucille encompasses the essence of being an adolescent when dealing with the crises of her life. With mood swings, unexplained forceful reactions, and raging hormones, it's almost as if teenagers are reading a book about their own life. Most notable in the book is Lucille's view on love and how it should be handled. She has love for everything, but her true, secret love is Billy McQueen. Although she has had no physical pleasure with Billy, Lucille loves everything about him with every inch of her body. She appreciates all that he does, and notices several qualities which remain hidden to others. The reader watches as Lucille's love grows, and the reader is informed of all the feelings that she has. Lucille's love soon reaches the breaking point and evenually Billy seems to fall victim to its grasp. The result is adultery. This catches the reader off guard with just the thought of the age differential between the two. However, this incident brings Lucille into a new reality or a coming of age, where she realizes that she will never be with Billy. She knows that she has experienced love to its fullest and is secure enough and mature enough now, to handle the real world.

This is an engaging story and so finely written that the reading is both effortless and seductive. After I had finished (that is, after drying my eyes and regaining my breath), I was amazed to realize how complex a plot it is considering how smoothly it is told. By far, it is the best book I have read in years.

The story starts on a summer day at a large country estate in pre-WWII England. For anyone who delights in the heady mix of intelligence, innocence and youthful imagination, the beginning is like eating rich chocolate: 13 year old Briony has written a play -- the references to Austen, Burney, and family performances within 18th century lore are abundant and perfect -- to be rehearsed and performed by her unwilling and displaced visiting cousins in order to celebrate her brother's return to home with his sophisticated friend. However, reheasals in the playroom for THE TRIALS OF ARABELLA (of course) do not run smoothly: the twins boys do not understand what is expected of them; there's tension between Briony and 15 year old Lola. During the hot summer afternoon, Briony looks out the window to see her older sister Cecilia and Robbie, the cleaning lady's son, having what looks like some kind of menacing (and intimate) interaction in the fountain. The rest of the day's events and mishaps play out without implication until nightfall when a real crime of a sexual nature occurs and Briony's overactive imagination and lack of sophistication lead her to make a accusation which results in genuine tragedy for everyone. Without revealing the entire plot and overwhelming descriptions of war and survival, Briny spends her life paying for this mistake. Near the end of her long life, and having enjoyed without enjoyment a successful writing career, Briony's birthday is celebrated by her relations. This party is held at the old country house, now a renovated hotel, where her grand nieces and nephews perform THE TRIALS OF ARABELLA, a deeply emotional and incomprehensible experience for all (the surviving twin boy, now an old man, breaks down completely, as will nearly every reader).

This book goes into my unofficial rank as one of the best reading experiences I've ever had. It tooks me days to shake the feeling that Briony was a part of my life. I was completely transported and I don't think there can be better praise than that.

A PIVOTAL MOMENT OCCURS IN ATONEMENT WHEN Robbie, a family friend of the Tallises, decides to search for their young missing cousins. He does not want the Tallis family to know yet of his love for their daughter, so he separates from her and sets out through the extensive family grounds on his own.

It is a choice that alters the rest of his life. Part one of the book, that the author builds slowly and carefully, ends with Cecelia Tallis's teenage sister, Briony, testifying that during the search, she witnessed cousin Lola's rape. Robbie is suspect number one.

Atonement finds author Ian McEwan turning from the restrictions of the thriller genre to create a literary marvel. He chooses an initial setting in and around an English Country Home occupied by the Tallis family. It is Pre-WWII.

McEwan ferrets out the anima of his main characters, most of whom undergo radical change by book's end, and not because of the World War. Emily is head of the household, mother to 13-year-old Briony (who is an emerging writer,) Cecelia, and older brother, Leon. Significant guests that fatal weekend include Paul Marshall, who is Leon's wealthy friend, a beautiful cousin named Lola, and the bratty mischievous young cousins. Also present: Robbie, a friend to the family since childhood.

In a romantic episode, McEwan writes an unhackneyed, and appealingly-fresh scene of Robbie and Cecelia making love for the first, awkward, but passionate time. Elegantly done.

Part Two narrates the characters' war service. Part Three concerns Briony's adult life.

In course of the book, McEwan subtly reveals a sibling rivalry theme, and shows the dangers that can spring from snobbery and racism. He also deals with how a writer can attempt atonement for their own misdeeds through writing fiction: surely an unusual theme.

A rich and profound work.

Winner of Britain's 1998 Booker prize for "Amsterdam," Ian McEwan narrowly missed winning again for "Atonement," a novel of breathtaking reach and grasp, power and subtlety, as perfectly structured as a Michaelangelo sculpture. Last year's Booker winner, Peter Carey's "The True History of the Kelly Gang" is a fine, entertaining, really good novel, but not a patch on "Atonement." It's difficult to reign in the hyperbole in discussing this masterful, riveting, incisive book, but I'll try.

The story is told in four very different segments. The long first section is set on the Tallis family's comfortable country estate in 1935. At its center is Briony Tallis, 13 when the story opens, 77 at the novel's close. The second section jumps to 1940 for a graphic, heartrending depiction of the rout at Dunkirk from the viewpoint of Robbie, a family protégé and gardener's son, and the third returns to Briony, a trainee nurse in a London hospital, awaiting the Dunkirk evacuees. The last section, narrated by Briony, reflects on the past from the vantage point of old age.

As the story opens, Briony, the youngest of three children, and a prolific short story writer, has turned her hand to playwrighting to celebrate the coming visit of her older brother, Leon, and involve some cousins displaced by their parents' impending divorce. But complementing Briony's vivid imagination is a passion for precision and order and directing the recalcitrant, even manipulative cousins, into her meticulous vision proves an unwieldy challenge. "The self-contained world she had drawn with clear and perfect lines had been defaced with the vague scribble of other minds, other needs; and time itself, so easily sectioned on paper into acts and scenes, was even now dribbling uncontrollably away."

While she is wrestling with this frustration, Briony views an incomprehensible scene from the window: her older sister Cecilia disrobing and jumping into the fountain while her old childhood friend, Robbie, looks on. The scene spurs Briony's imagination while the cousins rouse her ire and finally she abandons her play, ticket booth, posters and all and runs outdoors to take her frustrations out on the shrubbery. Wit and despair spark off one another in McEwan's acute portrayal of childhood intensity.

"It is hard to slash at nettles for long without a story imposing itself, and Briony was soon absorbed and grimly content, even though she appeared to the world like a girl in the grip of a terrible mood."

But, tiring of her heroic fantasy with the nettles, Briony returns to herself, more freighted with melancholy than before. She decides to stand on a small bridge until something happens. With perfect irony, McEwan foreshadows disaster: "She would simply wait on the bridge, calm and obstinate, until events, real events, not her own fantasies, rose to her challenge, and dared to dispel her insignificance."

The reader knows disaster is coming, but what, exactly, remains a mystery. Given Briony's dramatic capriciousness, it could be anything from murder to adolescent embarrassment. We know only that it reverberates down the years through Briony's life. And when at last it stands revealed in all its naked avoidability, McEwan jumps abruptly, jarringly, into the maelstrom of war and defeat.

Where the second section pins the reader in the horror and immediacy of Robbie's every intense moment, the first section roves from one viewpoint to another, riffling through the thoughts and feelings of each character and reflecting the characters in each other's eyes. There's competent, diplomatic Cecilia, flustered and preoccupied with Robbie's stiff behavior, and her mother, Emily, half bedridden, ineffectual and given to fusses but with a sense of herself as the matriarch with an internal finger on the pulse of the entire house, the cousins' bewilderment and insecurity, Leon's easygoing malleability, his tycoon friend's desire for a war to ensure the success of his coated chocolate bar and ardent Robbie's class uncertainties and intellectual confidence.

Psychologically nuanced, there isn't a wasted word, though the writing is not spare. Every sentence furthers the reader's understanding while moving the characters forward in their own groping self-actualization and misapprehension. At the core it's a novel about atonement, about forgiveness and unforgivability, about how some things cannot be undone. It's also a novel about love and war, emotion and intellect, society and the often clueless world of one's own head, childhood and adulthood and the gulf between. It's a novel about the process of writing, of imagination, of misunderstanding. It's an ambitious beautiful book, which succeeds on every level. You won't want it to end.

This was my first read of Carolly Erickson, and I was enthralled by her writing style. Yes, the book reads like a novel, but I don't find this detrimental. One of the biggest problems with historical biographies are they are often heavy and dull, and I don't think this should be the case when describing extraordinary times and events. I felt like I was transplanted "into the period;" and while Josephine had her share of vices, I found her accessible and human. A lot of times with biographies, I end up hating the subject, because the author relishes revealing the subject's tarnished persona in such an unflattering light. Ms. Erickson's Josephine I liked, despite her evident flaws.

My only complaint would be overindulgence in trivial detail, e.g., her "rotten teeth" and "fading beauty." No one really likes aging, do they?

Carrolly Erickson is a talented researcher and author, and her new biography on Empress Josephine is another very good read. I have a problem, however, with Erickson's habit of falling a little too much in love with some of her less admirable subjects. Josephine, while an exceptional character study, does not deserve the relentless emphasis Erickson places on her few redeeming qualities. Josephine was, in fact, a shallow and self-indulgent liar, swindler, whore, and manipulator extraordinaire. Although Erickson acknowledges these traits, she plays them down by repeatedly referencing Josephine's ingenuousness, compassion, and victim qualities, none of which are visible without Erickson's careful coaching. Erickson displayed this same oh-come-now-she's-not-so-bad-if-you'll-only-try approach with Mary Tudor ("Bloody Mary"). The book ended, appropriately, with Josephine's funeral. But I wanted to know what happened to her two children, Napolean's new wife, and even the loathsome Bonapart relatives. These were not peripheral characters; they were integral components of Josephine's life and a quick wrap-up sketch of each would have made the ending much more satisfying. I'm glad I read this book and recommend it to other biography and history lovers. Even so it's difficult to resist a spectacular kind of repugnance towards Josephine, notwithstanding Erickson's unfortunate and obvious urging to the contrary.

I loved reading this book and couldn't put it down because it got me to know Josephine - Napoleon's first Empress. I was born on 8/15 which is also Napoleon's Birthday so I have several books in my library about him. Since there is not a lot written about Josephine except that she married a man; a minor official in the Court of Louis 16th who was eventually executed by the"Terror"; had two children with him; after his death she became popular and hosted a salon where she met Napoleon. Miss Erickson brought Josephine to life for me with teling her story from the time of her birth on a plantation in the West Indies to her death in a very entertaining and charming way. I would recommend this biography to anyone who enjoys reading the lives of famous women or French History.ERIN MARIE SULLIVAN