I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

I Capture the Castle was a really delightful story of 17 year old girl—Cassandra Mortmain—growing up in 1930s England. She and her family live in abject poverty in an old run down English castle. Her father is a famous author, who has experienced a decade of writers block sparked by a year of imprisonment (the background of which was rather humorous). The result is that the only people in the Mortmain household capable of earning any income are Stephen, an orphan who helps out around the house, and Topaz, the eccentric step-mom who earns money by modeling for paintings. Cassandra is the narrator of the book via her journals; which she started keeping in order to practice speedwriting.

When two young American men, Simon and Neil Cotton, arrive at the castle, the Mortmains lives change drastically. They bring inspiration, financial assistance, love, food and entertainment to the Mortmains and ultimately provide Cassandra with tons of material for her journals.

I kept getting lost when reading I Capture the Castle as the author doesn’t do much by the way of putting the story in historical context. My recent readings have been set during the late 19th century, while I Capture the Castle is set during the mid 20th century. It was interesting to note the various social changes that occurred between the 19th and 20th centuries.

This was a funny, clever, amusing, easy read. The characters were well defined and easy to love (or hate). The story was suspenseful, but not too much, and heart-wrenching in places, but not to bring you to tears.

Favorite Quotes: "In the end, Miss Marcy took the middle pages out of her library record, which gave us a pleasant feeling that we were stealing from the government..." (15)

"And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate." (130)

"I DO NOT ENVY ROSE. When I imagine changing places with her I get the feeling I do on finishing a novel with a brick-wall happy ending--I mean the kind of ending when you never think any more about the characters..." (197)

If this were a movie, I'd rate it: PG-13.

Overall Grade: B

Would I recommend this book to my friends: Some of them--the less intellectually driven ones, or those who want a good, quick, vacation read.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Upon closing the back cover of Tess of the d'Urbervilles (which will be abreviated TdU moving forward), my husband looked over and asked "what did you think?" to which I replied "I loved this book. Yeah, I loved it."

When my brother was home over Christmas and I was reading Emma, he and I were discussing our distaste for Jane Austen novels and one complaint that surfaced was that her stories typically focus on people and their high class problems. ("High class problems" is a phrase our family uses if someone is stressed out about where to go on vacation or what to wear to the ball, etc.) Part of what I loved about TdU is that this story is not about high class problems, in fact, quite the opposite. Also, I loved this book because it is another story about crazy people in love (which, as mentioned previously on this blog, I enjoy.) Finally, I thouroughly enjoyed Thomas Hardy's writing style. It was artistic, expressive and detailed without excessive verbosity.

TdU gained a lot of attention (some positive, some negative) in its day because it was daring--it questioned social order, destiny, values, and religion. Most importantly, the book is based on a "true" story which in today's society would be, for the most part, commonplace but would have been kept intenesely secret in the 1800s.

TdU is a story of Tess Durbeyfield, who was the oldest daughter of an impoverished, drunk beggar and a milkmaid. The book chronicles her life and her struggles as a poor woman in rural England.

Favorite Quote: I have three--I couldn't pick one. 1) "the magnitude of lives is not as to their extrenal displacements, but as to their subjective experiences. The impressionable peasant leads a larger, fuller, more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king." 2) "It was for herself that he loved Tess; her soul, her heart, her substance--not for her skill in the dairy..." 3) "This was always how Clare settled practical questions; by a sentiment which had nothing to do with them."

If this were a movie, I'd rate it: PG-13.

Overall Grade: A

Would I recommend this book to my friends: Absolutely...although, not to the ones who demand "happily ever after" endings.

Emma by Jane Austen

The trouble with Emma was that I've seen "Clueless" far too many times. (Some might argue that once is too many times, but I love the movie myself.) This created two difficulties. First, the majority of the plot twists were unsurprising as they'd been revealed in the movie. Second, I could not stop myself from comparing and contrasting Clueless--the movie and Emma--the book which almost certainly detracted from any real connection or absorption that would have normally been possible while reading Emma.

In case you live under a rock and have never seen Clueless or even the movie adaptation of Emma (curiously I don't remember nearly as much about the latter), Emma is a young single girl in mid 19th century England who has passions for a) caring for her father b) remaining single and c) matchmaking.

I felt that this book was filled with horribly mundane details, cliches (although some of these cliches may originate here), and typical love stories. Please feel free to comment on what you believe to be the merits of this story which I have so clearly missed.

Favorite Quote: "How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!"

If this book were a movie, I’d rate it: PG for adult themes.

Overall Grade: D

Would I recommend this book to my friends? Nope, not so much.

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

I walked into my favorite local bookstore and said to my favorite clerk, something to the effect of—I’m really embarrassed to be asking this, but do you have Bridget Jones’s Diary. To which he replied—“I’ve never taken anyone’s diary”. See, when you buy books at Rediscovered, you even get a joke to go with it. Just one more reason to justify buying books when I have no money to buy anything.


I had just finished War and Peace and chose Bridget Jones’s Diary because it seemed like the easiest, fluffiest book on my list. It was.

This is one of those rare books where if you’ve seen the movie, you don’t really need to read the book (I almost never say this.) The book is a diary of a single British woman who is on a quest for self assurance, men, weight loss and sobriety. Very funny. Very British. Very much like real life.

Favorite Quote: “I’m not going all the way to Huntingdon to celebrate the ruby wedding of two people I have spoken to once for eight seconds since I was three, just to throw myself in the path of a rich divorce who describes me as bizarre.” (p.182) Also: “It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It’s like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting ‘Cathy’ and banging your head against a tree.” (p.12)

If this book were a movie (and it is), I’d rate it: R (which it is) for sex and language.

Overall Grade: Really tough to grade. The book lover in me can’t bear to rate it high because it can’t even loosely be defined as literature, but it was quite amusing, so what the hell—B

Would I recommend this book to my friends? Yes.

War and Peace by: Leo Tolstoy

When I was about eight years old, I remember my mom reading War and Peace. I was in awe over how HUGE it was and thought she must have been a genius to be able to read this epic novel. As I stood in the airport on Oct. 31st, trying to find a book that I knew was on my list (I didn’t have internet access), I saw War and Peace and decided that the time had come for me to become an amazing reader like my mom.

War and Peace was significantly less intimidating that I had convinced myself it would be. I cruised through the first 700 pages—which were exciting and easy to read (okay, keep in mind I'm a history geek) and then I trudged through the next 400 pages—which were mostly about war and therefore more difficult for me to get through. The last 150 pages were back to the fun stuff (fun meaning people dying in non-war settings) again.

What I enjoyed most about Tolstoy’s take on war was his cynicism. He has a dry sense of humor and I found that the humor was of the type that if you blink you will miss it, but if you don’t blink then it is enlightening.

Everyone has heard of War and Peace but for those who don’t know what it is about (like me about a month ago), it is the story of several families and 1) their daily lives and 2) their experiences during the Napoleonic Wars in Russia. War and Peace is historical fiction—I learned from reading the preface that Tolstoy was a general in the war. He originally wrote history, but started writing fiction because pure history left out too much about people’s lives.

Favorite Quote: “Lady luck is nothing but a whore.”
If this book were a movie, I’d rate it: PG-13 or R This could go either way depending on how bullet wounds are portrayed.
Overall Grade: B
Would I recommend this book to my friends? Yes, but only a few of them. This is no Harry Potter read.

Good Omens by: Terry Pratchett

I read Good Omens on a cruise ship which means my brain was at least partially turned off. This was my first Terry Pratchett—I had heard good things about him—that he is cynical and clever and irreverent (all things I like). Good Omens was all of those things—not to the extent of someone like Christopher Moore, but cynical enough to be worthwhile.

The story is about the apocalypse. Two friends (one angel and one demon) who have been on earth together since the beginning are left to their own devices as they try to prevent the world from coming to its end. Aziraphale (the angel) owns a rare bookshop—not to sell books, but just to have a place to keep them. Crowley (the demon) drives an old Bentley. The witch—Anathema Device—has a book written by her prophetic grandmother 300 years prior which directs her own activities. The antichrist is planted by the demon—Crowley—as a baby. The story is creative and fun and was (as I had hoped) a good, easy cruise ship read.

If this book were a movie, I’d rate it: PG-13—a much harder PG-13 than Wuthering Heights. There was some language, but not a ton. There were some sexual references, but nothing explicit.
Overall Grade: B-
Would I recommend this book to my friends? Yes

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Online reviews told me that Wuthering Heights was much less pleasant to read than Jane Eyre because Heathcliff is such a jerk. Yeah, he’s a jerk, but his personality didn’t negatively affect my enjoyment of this book. The way I looked at it, this was a love story between some crazy people who, in today’s world would have been heavily medicated, but in 1830 were left to their own devices, which creates a far more interesting story.

This was a quick read and yeah, there were a few disturbing, gothic parts, but what would life be without tragedy? It would be cheesy like Jane Austen. The entire book (more or less) was the account of the lives of the main characters by a housekeeper who witnessed it all. The ending seemed a bit abrupt, but otherwise I felt that it was very well written.

I believe that the Bronte sisters only wrote one book each. I applaude them both for just writing the one good story that each posessed and leaving us with two wonderful gothic romances.

If this book were a movie, I’d rate it: PG-13…possibly PG. If it was produced exactly as written it would be PG-13, but you could easily make it PG.
Overall Grade: B
Would I recommend this book to my friends? Yes