Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) Penguin, 1978 She's "goodness made interesting". That's what Irving Howe calls Tess, the main character in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Interesting is one way to put it. Not all of his Victorian readers found it so however. His religious skepticism and his
The Heroine's Bookshelf Challenge Check it out here! Come on, you know you want to! (If all this is news to you, check out yesterday's response to this sweet little volume.) Or, if you'd rather, the book itself is structured in such a way that it invites a twelve-month exploration. The website
Elizabeth Vonarburg's Reluctant Voyagers (1995) Trans. from the French Jane Brierley Does sci-fi reading use a different muscle? If so, mine is out of practice. And no wonder. With exception of a handful of fantasy novels and one speculative fiction novel, I've been decidedly rooted in realism this reading year.
Muriel Spark's The Driver's Seat (1970) Putnam Publishing, 1984 In between, I forget how chilling they are. Muriel Spark novels. Somehow I mix them up with other skinny reads (like Penelope Fitzgerald novels) and other UK authors (like Penelope Lively), and they don't seem so upsetting, sitting there tidily pressed between
Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) New Directions, 1946 My friend Margaret put me onto Nathanael West, which is ironic because it was by virtue of her not having recognized his name in a discussion of literary masterpieces; she was relieved that I hadn't heard of him either. Ignorance loves company, even
