The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers

By Alexandre Dumas

****1/2

Teaser

Mixing a bit of seventeenth-century French history with a great deal of invention, Alexandre Dumas tells the tale of young D’Artagnan and his musketeer comrades, Porthos, Athos and Aramis. Together they fight to foil the schemes of the brilliant, dangerous Cardinal Richelieu, who pretends to support the king while plotting to advance his ownpower. Bursting with swirling swordplay, swooning romance, and unforgettable figures such as the seductively beautiful but deadly femme fatale, Milady, and D’Artagnan’s equally beautiful love, Madame Bonacieux, The Three Musketeers continues, after a century and a half of continuous publication, to define the genre of swashbuckling romance and historical adventure.
Barbara T. Cooper is Professor of French at the University of New Hampshire. She is a member of the editorial boards of Nineteenth-Century French Studies and the Cahiers Alexandre Dumas and specializes in nineteenth-century French drama and works by Dumas.

Review

I enjoyed this book, mostly because of the lofty feeling Dumas' style creates. Alexandre Dumas has a very wholesome writing style, and it keeps the story satisfactory to read throughout the over 700 pages. The plot itself isn't the only thing that pulls you into the world of swords, wine, and musketeers; Dumas' writing style and the extremely interesting and lovable characters make the book intriguing when the plot is slow. D'Artagnan, the protagonist, is very bold and entertaining and the other characters teach him lessons in humility. The many different components of the Three Musketeers make it a clever story with many wise lessons embedded in Dumas' world of bravery and friendship.

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

By Charles Dickens

****

"God bless us all, every one."

Review

I thought, hey it's the holiday season, I should review a holiday book. A Christmas Carol is the only ghost story anyone could probably ever consider charming. You feel disgust at the horrible demeanor of Scrooge, and you love the joy of his nephew. You feel a chill in your bones as you meet each new spirit, and in the end you learn the classic lesson that money is not that important, and the spirit of Christmas is the most joyful thing of all. It's a classic story, and one you should relish this year when the weather gets cold and dreary.

Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men

By John Steinbeck

Historical Fiction

***

Review

Of Mice and Men was a very different book for me. I had never really done a lot of reading in that time period, and it was my first John Steinbeck read (though I am looking forward to reading East of Eden). But I found it to be one of those books that has a very wholesome mood to it. I also found the story to be a very different one, and very sweet. The writing style had almost a light tone to it, even when talking of the darkest events. WARNING, SPOILERS IN THE NEXT SENTENCE! I liked this book because it had a sadder ending, and everyone has told me this will make me a Steinbeck fan. I am a fan of the sad ending.

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

By Charlotte Bronte

Romance

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*****

"I must, then, repeat continually that we are sundered; and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him."

"After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell."

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Review

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This book blew me away. Jane Eyre is a whirlwind of passion, hate, religion, and every single word strikes closer to the heart until you're sure this book will be the end of you. The beginning of this book and the character of Jane's friend Helen blew me away, I loved her so much, and you could just feel how real she, and everything else is. And not just that, you would really want to learn from and be like Helen. The as Jane's character develops more and more through the book, you feel her pain and love, and you feel the reality of the story. One really nice thing about this book is there are no cliffhangers at the end of chapters. Each chapter is the perfect daily read, and though I could have read it all in one night, it was easier to stop than other books. Not because it was not good, but because the chapters were split so well. This book also covered a wide range of very serious and and diverse topics. This book was definitely not just the cushy woman-only love story it has been called. But one of the things I loved best about this book is that I learned so much. Not just academically, but emotionally. Over all, to read Jane Eyre would be one of the best literary decisions you will ever make.

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird

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by Harper Lee

Historical Fiction

***

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Teaser

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill a Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos.

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When I first picked up this novel I expected it to be rather boring and honestly, the first hundred pages or so kind of were. In this book you travel with two children through a very rough time in their lives. The great depression has set in and their father, a lawyer, has taken on the toughest case of his career. The trial creates some very exciting drama, for the issue that was really being tried was the credibility of a black man in a time when they had no rights. This book gives a deep insight into what is right and what is wrong. It is an interesting view on this matter because it is seen from the eyes of a child. For anyone interested in historical fiction this is the book for you.

Raechel- I just wanted to add a little bit to this post.  I loved To Kill A Mockingbird because of the tangible world Harper Lee creates and just how descriptive and real Maycomb, Alabama becomes to the reader.  Whenever I think of good imagery, I think of To Kill A Mockingbird.  I think the book also touches and many different moral issues, and the book as a whole is very relatable.  I would probably have given this book four stars.  

Frankenstein

Frankenstein

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Mary Shelley

Classic Literature/Fiction/Horror

*****

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"I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces, and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me?" - Monster

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Teaser

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Few creatures of horror have seized readers' imaginations and held them for so long as the anguished monster of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The story of Victor Frankenstein's terrible creation and the havoc it caused has enthralled generations of readers an inspired countless writers of horror and suspense. Considering the novel's enduring success, it is remarkable that it began merely as a whim of Lord Byron's.

"We will each write a ghost story," Byron announced to his next-door neighbors, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley. The friends were summering on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland in 1816, Shelley still unknown as a poet, Byron writing the third canto to Childe Harold. When continual rains kept them confines indoors, all agreed to Byron's proposal.

The illustrious poets failed to complete their ghost stories. But Mary Shelley rose supremely to the challenge. With Frankenstein, she succeeded admirably in the task she set for herself: to create a story that, in her own words, "would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror - one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beating of the heart."

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Review

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This is very possibly the best written book that I have ever read. It's definitely one of my absolute favorites. Mary Shelley does a superb job with details. You can imagine ever character perfectly, and her descriptions of the monster leave nothing to be desired. Her descriptions of nature are so exact that you can picture the scenery down to the last speck of dirt or blade of grass. She also manages to tie up every loose end. Nothing goes unexplained, and at the end of the novel you feel as though you have really witnessed this terrible atrocity. Shelley has a unique way of playing with the reader's emotions. At times you feel such incredible pity for the monster that it is nearly overwhelming. And yet still, at other times, you feel such hatred for him that you hope and pray for his demise. This novel is a very "dark romantic" styled writing. The elegant phrasing also adds to the emotional level of this piece. I loved everything about this book. I highly recommend it for advanced young readers interested in classic literature, or adults.

Sherlock Holmes

The Complete Sherlock Holmes

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Mystery

****

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"Elementary, my dear Watson."

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Teaser

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Eccentric, arrogant, and ingenious, Sherlock Holmes remains the world's most popular and influential fictional detective. In four novels and fifty-six short stories, Holmes, with his trusted friend Dr. Watson, steps from his comfortable quarters at 221B Baker Street into the swirling fog of London. Combining detailed observation with brilliant deduction, Homes rescues the innocent, confounds the guilty, and solves the most perplexing puzzles crime has to offer.

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Review

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I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes, and I found that it was a really good break from extremely singular genres such as romance or science fiction. I liked the short story format because I could just browse through the book at my leisure. I also enjoyed the novels, they provided more elaborate stories. Holmes is a character that is impossible not to like, either for his wit or his cunning. The crimes are also interesting because you can try to solve them as the story goes, like most mysteries. Over all, Sherlock Holmes was a very well rounded book, and for people who enjoy adventure, mystery, and reading late into the night, this is a great book.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde

Classic Literature

229 pages

***

"I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious and marvelous to us."

"If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him."

"There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up."

"I am what I am. There is nothing more to be said."

"But the picture? what was he to say to that? It held the secret of his life and told his story. It had taught him to love his own beauty. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul?"

Teaser

Oscar Wilde brings his enormous gifts for astute social observation and sparkling prose to The Picture of Dorian Gray, his dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. This dandy, who remains forever unchanged - petulant, hedonistic, vain, and amoral - while a painting of him ages and grows increasingly hideous with the years, has been horrifying, enchanting, obsessing, even corrupting readers for more than a hundred years.

Taking the reader in and out of London drawing rooms, to the heights of aestheticism, and to the depths of decadence, The Picture of Dorian Gray is not only a melodrama about moral corruption. Laced with vivid depictions of upper-class refinement, it is also a fascinating look at the milieu of Wilde's manifesto of the creed "Art for Art's Sake."

Review

This book is incredibly fascinating, but also exceptionally dull at times. It provides an excellent look at the internal struggle between what is right, and what is fun. Another central conflict in this book was that of the importance of beauty over intelligence. Men with education were next to worthless, for anything except their selected area of skill, in these times. Vanity is a huge part of this piece also. All of these things are masterfully blended together to create some very enthralling conversations. This book is very well written in the respect that it flows well, however, I did notice that the action seemed to come in spurts, followed by some down time that tended to be boring. Overall I enjoyed this book. It had parts that I absolutely loved and the ending is totally worth pushing through the dull parts for.