Two more books
Dec. 4th, 2019 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34The first is the reason that the November children's books roundup is so lean: we mostly read The Borrowers each night for the whole month of November.
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was such a fun read! I didn't read this as a child and so had no idea where the story was going. I love that it's ambiguous as to whether the Borrowers are real or just a story Mrs. May's brother told her when they were young. I also am relieved to see that there are more books in the series because I desperately want to know what happened to Lupy and how Uncle Hendreary and his boys have been living and how Pod, Arrietty, and Homily set up house after their "immigration." Thoroughly delightful story.
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The second is a truly excellent collection of essays I read yesterday while doing research for my book chapter. It really helped me to clarify for myself a few things I want to do in my writing. I very much think that some of you would enjoy reading it; I think it's got a wider audience than just academics.
Women Writers and the Artifacts of Celebrity in the Long Nineteenth Century by Ann R. Hawkins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This collection of essays is so good. Not a dud among them. Included are several articles about Marie Corelli, one about Alice Meynell, and another about Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Mrs. Henry Wood. All the articles are about 19th-century women writers and how they cultivated or eschewed celebrity (or how their descendants made choices about their legacies after their deaths). Lots of really good stuff about print and visual artifacts of celebrity (for example, the birthday book or the use of signatures and photos/portraits on the frontispieces of novels). Apparently most scholarship about celebrity culture has defined it as a phenomenon that begins in the early 20th century with the advent of movies, which is nuts to any Victorianist LOL, so a lot of space is devoted to showing that the antecedents of modern celebrity culture start much earlier than media studies often allows. I think this collection is easy to read, interesting, and accessible beyond the scholar. Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
The Borrowers by Mary NortonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was such a fun read! I didn't read this as a child and so had no idea where the story was going. I love that it's ambiguous as to whether the Borrowers are real or just a story Mrs. May's brother told her when they were young. I also am relieved to see that there are more books in the series because I desperately want to know what happened to Lupy and how Uncle Hendreary and his boys have been living and how Pod, Arrietty, and Homily set up house after their "immigration." Thoroughly delightful story.
View all my reviews
The second is a truly excellent collection of essays I read yesterday while doing research for my book chapter. It really helped me to clarify for myself a few things I want to do in my writing. I very much think that some of you would enjoy reading it; I think it's got a wider audience than just academics.
Women Writers and the Artifacts of Celebrity in the Long Nineteenth Century by Ann R. HawkinsMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This collection of essays is so good. Not a dud among them. Included are several articles about Marie Corelli, one about Alice Meynell, and another about Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Mrs. Henry Wood. All the articles are about 19th-century women writers and how they cultivated or eschewed celebrity (or how their descendants made choices about their legacies after their deaths). Lots of really good stuff about print and visual artifacts of celebrity (for example, the birthday book or the use of signatures and photos/portraits on the frontispieces of novels). Apparently most scholarship about celebrity culture has defined it as a phenomenon that begins in the early 20th century with the advent of movies, which is nuts to any Victorianist LOL, so a lot of space is devoted to showing that the antecedents of modern celebrity culture start much earlier than media studies often allows. I think this collection is easy to read, interesting, and accessible beyond the scholar. Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
