Feature Fridays

Today's classic is Emma (1815) by Jane Austen.

Jane Austen exercises her taste for cutting social observation and her talent for investing seemingly trivial events with profound moral significance as Emma traverses a gentle satire of provincial balls and drawing rooms, along the way encountering the sweet Harriet Smith, the chatty and tedious Miss Bates, and her absurd father Mr. Woodhouse–a memorable gallery of Austen's finest personages. Thinking herself impervious to romance of any kind, Emma tries to arrange a wealthy marriage for poor Harriet, but refuses to recognize her own feelings for the gallant Mr. Knightley. What ensues is a delightful series of scheming escapades in which every social machination and bit of "tittle-tattle" is steeped in Austen's delicious irony. Ultimately, Emma discovers that "Perfect happiness, even in memory, is not common."

Did you know? The 1995 movie Clueless starring Alicia Silverstone is based on the plot of Emma.


If you've read it, take a quiz to test your memory.

You can read Emma online for free at Read Print.

Have you read Emma (or seen the 1996 movie adaptation starring Gwyneth Paltrow)?

Thoughts for Thursday

Do you have a favorite book website to share?

I visit many book sites regularly. One of my recent discoveries is Review-a-Day at Powell's Books. You can visit the site any time and read current and past reviews, or you can subscribe to get a Review-a-Day by email.

Wednesday Wish List

Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott


Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She's intelligent-she aced AP physics; athletic-a former state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family's move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn't been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared. But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth's hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them-and that her deceptions will have profound consequences. This is Anne Lamott's most honest and heartrending novel yet, exploring our human quest for connection and salvation as it reveals the traps that can befall all of us.

She has written 6 novels as well as 4 bestselling nonfiction books.

Have you read anything by Anne Lamott?

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays (started on Should Be Reading) asks you to:

Grab your current read (or a book on your shelf that you've read or been wanting to read). Let the book fall open to a random page. Share two (or a few) teaser sentences from that page. Don't forget to share the title and author of the book in case someone is teased into reading. Please avoid spoilers!

I've posted my teaser below. Post yours in the comment section if you'd like to share as well!

Without drinking coffee or puffing on a cigarette, he starts on new stuff, stuff I haven't heard, stuff I listen to real carefully. Of course, it's all full of more insults, the doctor saying the boy's schizophrenic because his brain is all messed up.

from The Suburbs of Heaven by Merle Drown

Movie Mondays

Naked Lunch

Book, 1959 by William S. Burroughs

Why has this homosexual ex-junkie, whose claim to fame rests entirely on one book--the hallucinogenic ravings of a heroin addict--so seized the collective imagination? Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch in a Tangier, Morocco, hotel room between 1954 and 1957. Allen Ginsberg and his beatnik cronies burst onto the scene, rescued the manuscript from the food-encrusted floor, and introduced some order to the pages. It was published in Paris in 1959 by the notorious Olympia Press and in the U.S. in 1962; the landmark obscenity trial that ensued served to end literary censorship in America.

Burroughs's literary experiment--the much-touted "cut-up" technique--mirrored the workings of a junkie's brain. But it was junk coupled with vision: Burroughs makes teeming amalgam of allegory, sci-fi, and non-linear narration, all wrapped in a blend of humor--slapstick, Swiftian, slang-infested humor. What is Naked Lunch about? People turn into blobs amidst the sort of evil that R. Crumb, in the decades to come, would inimitably flesh out with his dark and creepy cartoon images. Perhaps the most easily grasped part of Naked Lunch is its America-bashing, replete with slang and vitriol. Read it and see for yourself.

The novel was included in Time: 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923to 2005".


Movie, 1991 directed by David Cronenberg

Features: Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm

Tagline: The book was banned. The film should never have been made. Too late.

Awards: It won 7 Genie Awards for Canadian film including Best Picture and Best Director.

Did you know? The film is a metatextual adaptation.

Have you read the book or seen the movie?