Genre Fiction

As announced by Modality, Inc. and Wiley Publishing, Inc., the popular cheat sheet study guides CliffNotes now has an interactive application available for iPhone users, available in the Apple App Store.

Five individual CliffNotes apps, the first in a series of more than 40, provide comprehensive character, theme, and plot summaries and analysis; multiple choice quizzes; text highlighting; character maps and profiles, and audio CramCasts covering five classics:

* The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
* Macbeth by William Shakespeare
* Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
* The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
* To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

These first five CliffsNotes study guides are available for just $0.99 per application now, and additional titles will debut later in 2009.

People feel free to repeatedly sing “Mustang Sally” to me (even though most of them don’t know more than five words). They make jokes about Sally Jessy Raphael and about Dick and Jane. But why has nobody ever mentioned that there is a classic fiction novel called The Adventures of Sally? The very first few words of this P.G. Wodehouse novel have me hooked just by the title of chapter one: “Sally Gives a Party.”

What’s more - Sally, a young American girl whose life is turned upside-down when she inherits a wealth of money, is a repeating character for the comical author. Sally’s debacles first appeared as serial stories in Collier’s Weekly and Grand magazines. He again created a character named Sally for Doctor Sally; this time she is a golf expert.

I must get my hands on a copy of Wodehouse’s Sally stories!

Michael Turner, librarian and head of conservation at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, was sorting through the archives of book-trade ephemera that had been bought by the Bodleian in 1892 when he came across an huge discovery: He found the book jacket shown here, which is the oldest known book dust jacket, dating from 1830.

In the 19th century, book jackets were more wrapper like than today’s versions. This was wrapped around a book, Friendship’s Offering, which has been separated from the jacket, to protect its silk binding. The two red stains that you can see in this picture are from a wax seal that was used to hold the wrapper around the book in a classy gift wrapping manner.

“These books were like gift books, often bound very nicely and probably in silk,” Clive Hurst, the Bodleian’s head of rare books and printed ephemera, told the UK’s Guardian. “Silk bindings are very vulnerable to wear and tear and handling so bookselllers would keep them in these wrappers to protect the silk binding underneath. When you bought the book you would take the wrapper off and put it on your shelves, which is presumably why so few of these covers have survived.”

Later in the 1800s, bookbinding became more durable. Publishers also began to realize that the outside cover was the ideal time to capture the consumer’s attention. They began using more vibrant colors and images, and started including more detailed descriptions, full titles, and the author’s information.

Friendship’s Offering was published annually for many years in the 1800s as an anthology of work by famous writers of the time.

Allusion is a literary device where the writer makes a reference to another piece of literary work, be it the author, the title, a quote, or something else. I love literary allusion. I also love figuring out why authors and publishers choose a book’s title. See where I’m going with this?

A lot of books’ titles are literary allusion to a previously published book. Here are some examples where the first book’s title is an allusion to the second book or poem:

* As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner: The Odyssey by Homer

* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon: Silver Blaze by Arthur Conan Doyle

* For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway: Meditation XVII by John Donne

* In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck: Paradise Lost by John Milton

* I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou: Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar

* The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side by Agatha Christie: The Lady of Shalott by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

* No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy: Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats

* Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham: Ethics by Baruch Spinoza

* Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck: To a Mouse by Robert Burns

* The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham: Lift Not the Painted Veil Which Those Who Live by Percy Bysshe Shelley

* A Passage to India by E. M. Forster: Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Ask and you shall receive! I put out the word that I was interested in diving into some good classics. I asked my family and friends what books they would recommend and if they had any that I could borrow. And they responded, books in hand!

My mom dug around her house and rustled up five books, three of which she highly recommends to me: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte are her top suggestions. She also brought me copies of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

My roommate also thought of me when scoping out old books. She grabbed me a copy of Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

If you are interested in joining me in reading the classics but just can’t find the time because you are too busy reading and rereading all things Twilight, then I have the perfect book for you!

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith is the latest craze for intellectuals with a freaky side. Grahame-Smith, who has previously written quirky thrillers such as How to Survive a Horror Movie and The Big Book of Porn, somehow managed to snag the right to fiddle and faddle with Austen’s romantic classic. P and P and Zs features all the original text of Austen’s original story, but with an extra plot twist: “a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton and the dead are returning to life.”

This book weaves together Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s tale with little extra bone-crushing, brain-eating zombie action. It also includes 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice). Word is that Hollywood big wigs are already in a bidding battle over the rights to turn this chick lit gone goth into a film. No surprise there, but who will be cast as the zombie-fighting heroine? Could Keira Knightley still pull off the role with a few new undead costars?

The original P and P was published in 1813 and continues to be a bestseller today, making most “100 Best Books” lists. It was Jane’s second novel; she also wrote Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Emma, and six more.

I am about one-third of the way into Pearl S. Buck’s classic The Good Earth and so far I am loving it!

The book was originally published in 1931, and won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel the following year. And, I just learned, that it is the first in a trilogy. It was followed by Sons in 1932 and A House Divided in 1935. In 1937, a film version was made and later a Broadway play. The novel has been a steady bestseller since it was first published, and made Oprah’s Book Club list in 2004. Buck was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, and it was for The Good Earth.

The book follows Wang Lung, a young man living in China, taking care of his elderly father, as he marries an ugly, but hardworking, slave girl and the two begin their happy family. Wang Lung has a business-savvy mind and is a good farmer, the combination of which makes his family successful. Until the famine hits. From that point on Wang Lung and his family get hit with hardships and find brief moments of relief, but always he stays motivated because he still has his land and no one can take that away from him.

The reader gets an in-depth look at early 20th century family life in China, when rich and poor people were extremely divided and times were often uncertain as a revolution began to grow. Where some books have since given a glimpse into one or two aspects of Chinese culture, this book gave a wide-spread look at life in general, including women’s rights (or lack there of), childbirth, class separation, work and play, spirituality, and much more.

I cannot wait to finish, and hope that I enjoy the middle and end as much as I have the beginning.

I just discovered the Times Machine, a special section of the New York Times’ Web site that has pictures of archived newspapers from about 100 years ago. There are selections from the 1850s through to the 1920s. From 1909, I found this front page, dated March 28, where seven well-known men of the time listed their top ten books.

The article, titled “Selections of Books by Well-Known Men: Seven Lists of Ten Best Books, from Men in Varied Activities, Indicate Literary Tendencies of the Day,” shows that men of 1909 read the Bible, Shakespeare, and Emerson … or at least they all thought these were impressive answers.

The article is lengthy and detailed, and it is unfortunate that it’s near impossible to read it in its entirety. Some of what you might not be able to read: The editors tested these seven men’s trends against the general public. They also analyzed why and how people choose favorite books.

I have a strange fascination with the Bronte sisters, even though I have yet to read anything by any of them. I am always intrigued and slightly disturbed by women who use a man’s name as their pen name, as all three sisters did when writing poetry in their early careers. I like that the girls kept their initials and still shared the same last name. But beyond that, I am not sure where my interest comes from. In an attempt to analyze my stray thoughts, here’s a bit about each Bronte, including what each wrote.

Charlotte Bronte, a.k.a. Currer Bell, was the eldest sister, but not the eldest Bronte. There were two non-writing siblings born before her. Her novels include Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), and Villette (1853). The Professor was the first that Charlotte wrote, but was at first rejected by many publishing houses. It was published posthumously in 1857. Emma was left unfinished. Charlotte wrote only 20 pages of the manuscript, which was later finished by author Clare Boylan.

Emily Bronte, a.k.a. Ellis Bell, was the fifth Bronte child. She is best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), which was published the same year as Charlotte’s Jane Eyre.

Anne Bronte, a.k.a. Acton Bell, was the youngest of all six Bronte children. As most younger siblings are, Anne was overshadowed by her successful sisters. Neither of her published novels - Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) - are as well known nor as highly revered as the works of Charlotte and Emily.

Such talent in one family amazes me, and I believe I am narrowing my search to find my next classic read. The choices are now down to the books within this post, the works of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte.

The portrait shown here was painted by the girls’ brother, Branwell. From left, the images are of Anne, Emily, and Charlotte. In between the last two was once a picture of Branwell, but he later painted himself out of the portrait.

Now that I am enjoying Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth, after finishing George Orwell’s Animal Farm, I am already thinking about what classic I will read next. The only other ones that I have on my bookshelf are plays, and that’s not what I am in the mood for. So it’s off to find out what must-read classics I will most likely enjoy.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is a top recommendation for women who enjoy romance novels. I can certainly get into a good mushy read, but I don’t know that romance is one of my top genres.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin has strong potential as both a novel about a woman’s role in society and one by someone considered to be one of, if not the, first female novelist. Plus there are plenty of related films to watch after reading.

Amazon suggests 1984 by George Orwell and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury as similar reads to Animal Farm. For The Good Earth, it’s Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe … which scares me because I hated this book with a passion when I was forced to read it in high school.

One that I know little to nothing about, but have always been slightly interested in - such as Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller have a good shot at getting picked.

I’m at a loss because there are so many choices and so many declared as ones that you have to read before you die. Luckily, I have a couple hundred pages left before I have to buckle down and decide.

Writing a fiction book blog has made me realize how few classics I have actually read (and remember) cover to cover. I prefer easy-to-read fiction, especially since I do most of my reading in bed before falling asleep.

To get myself started on catching up with the classics, I cracked open George Orwell’s Animal Farm this week. I picked up a small, paperback copy, in good condition, for free when my local library was purging their shelves recently.

The book has been recommended to me numerous times as an animal lover, with each person telling me that it’s more about humans than animals, which it is. The book is about a dystopian society, loosely reflecting the Stalin era leading up to World War II. The story goes quickly from the animals overthrowing human leadership and establishing their own, idealistic labor force and way of life, to the pigs claiming leadership and power and eventually creating a manipulative dictatorship. Being in tune with animals, I can now understand dictators and the WWII era better than ever.

Animal Farm is a quick, fairly easy read, with only a few awkwardly worded sentences that tripped me up. I enjoyed Orwell’s tongue-in-cheek story and would recommend it, especially if you can appreciate animals.

Now that I’ve read some Orwell, I have moved on to Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth, which I also snagged for free at the library. I’m only a few pages in, but am really enjoying the historical fiction characteristics of the story. Buck’s writing does have a few bumps that force me to re-read sentences, but getting through the style is worth is so far.

I just stumbled upon Spread the Word: Books to Talk About, and, despite the fact that I cannot figure out who runs the site or what their goal in doing do is, I love it. There is talk of book tokens, book awards, and book holidays, none of which are fully explained. But there are also results from one of the best public polls ever … or at least one that’s pretty entertaining.

The unknown people behind this site asked an unknown group of people what their guilty pleasure or secret is when it comes to books and reading. The results showed that: 96% of people stay up late to finish a book. 65% have lied about reading a book that they haven’t.
41% have turned to the last page to find out what happens before finishing a book.

Of those who admitted to lying about having read a book or not, these are the more popular books to lie about:

1. 1984 by George Orwell (42% of the 65% that are liars)
2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (31%)
3. Ulysses by James Joyce (25%)
4. The Bible (24%)
5. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (16%)
6. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (15%)
7. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (14%)
8. In Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (9%)
9. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (6%)
10. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (6%)

I don’t know about you, and I try not to judge, but the last time I lied about reading a book was Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and that was in 11th grade. (I also played hooky the day we had to watch the movie version, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.)

Do adults really lie about reading books?

I finished another book, and have moved on to reading a classic: Animal Farm by George Orwell. I have decided that, since bestsellers have been failing to wow me lately - present reviewee excluded, I am going to look into the past and pick up some of the all-time best books. I have not read many classics aside from Shakespeare, so there’s a lot out there!

But for now, here’s a review of another 21st-century bestseller.

Novel Title: Whistling in the Dark

Author: Lesley Kagen

Year: 2007

Story Behind the Book’s Name: “Whistling in the dark” is an idiom meaning “to be confident that something good will happen when it is not at all likely” (source), and this describes Troo, the younger sister of the main character, 10-year-old Sally O’Malley, to a tee.

Type of Story: Murder mystery from the point of view of a child.

Main Setting: A small town neighborhood, where everyone knows everyone else’s business, in 1959 Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

First Sentence: The morning Mother told us she was sick, Troo and me were just laying in the lime summer grass, smelling the bleach comin’ off the wash that jitterbugged on the line and getting ready to play that name game with her.

My Thoughts: My initial reaction should say it all; read that by clicking here.

Similar Reads: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, and Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock. And although I wouldn’t compare it to Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, a quote from her is on the cover so someone finds their styles similar.

Other Books by the Author: Land of a Hundred Wonders (2008).

About.com’ Spain Travel blog created an different kind of top ten book list: the Top Ten Books Set in Spain.

1. Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes

2. The Poetry & Plays of Federico García Lorca

3. Travels With My Donkey by Tim Moore

4. South from Granada by Gerald Brenan

5. Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart

6. Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

7. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

8. Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway

9. Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving

10. As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee

Visit the article for a synopsis of each book, and to learn what language it was originally written in. Find more books set in Spain at Biblio Travel where you can even search specific regions within Spain such as Barcelona or Madrid.

Whether your kids are toddlers or teens they have a reading-related reason to celebrate next Friday, March 20.

For the older kids, Borders nationwide are hosting Twilight movie release parties, starting at 10 p.m. The night will include trivia, the Twilight movie awards (e.g. Best Bella-Edward Moment), a vampire-themed scavenger hunt around the store, and raffle prizes. Fans can get more info about the parties, as well as a voting ballot for the awards, online at Borders’ Twilight page.

If your kids - or your inner child - is too young for vampiric love stories, party in honor of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar instead. This classic, award-winning, international best-selling children’s picture book celebrates its 40th anniversary on March 20. Since its publication in 1969, 29 million copies of the book have sold worldwide and it has been published in over 45 languages.

Whether you and your young readers prefer characters that drink blood or ones that eat fresh produce, there’s a reason to celebrate reading next weekend.