Welcome to the library. This is where you can find reports by myself and others (hopefully others) on various works of literature, in the form of a "Book of the Month Club". Except it's not every month.
I am also giving a list of books that I recommend to anyone with the same interests as myself, and links to sites that I think are worth visiting, such as the Amazon Online Bookstore, for those of you with money to spend.
Poetry Section--The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service
I won't put in the text, you can look it up for yourself. This is a hilarious poem - a real Canadian gem. It's about some men in the Klondike Gold Rush, and one of them (Sam McGee) is from Tennessee, and is always whining about how cold it is up in the North. One of the men, being kinder than most, gets stuck travelling with him, and Sam keeps getting colder and colder, and realizes he's going to die. So, he makes the other guy promise to cremate him when he dies. In due course of time, McGee does pass away, and his unlucky companion is stuck dragging his frozen corpse around, because he promised to cremate him, and unfortunately left his portable crematorium at home :P
Eventually, the man finds an abandoned ice digger stuck in the ice, and it has a furnace on it. So, the man builds up the fire, and when it's good and hot, puts Sam McGee in, shuts the door and runs off in terror. After waiting a while, he figures he'd better go back and check to see that McGee is all burned up, so that he can consider his promise kept and leave for good. He unwillingly climbs aboard and opens the furnace door, and sees an astonishing sight - Sam McGee, sitting in the midst of the flames, having a jolly old time! McGee told him to shut the door to keep out the draft - and that it was the first time since he left home that he'd been warm!!!!!! :)!!!!!
Book of the Month--Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Mansfield Park is one of Austen's not quite so well-known works, however, it is as interesting to read as Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, or Emma, all of which have received more attention as a result of being chosen for recently made, well made, and popular movies.
The heroine of the story is a young girl from a poor family in an English port town, one Fanny Price. Her mother has two sisters in another part of England, one of whom is the widow of a clergyman, and another who is married to a wealthy, landed gentleman. The first sister convinces the great family on the estate that they should all help the Price family by relieving them of Fanny, and help Fanny by giving her the benefit of their company. :P So, it is decided that Fammy will be brought up as a sort of companion for her two female cousins and her aunt, who is frail in mind as well as in body.
Naturally, once Fanny is within the bosom of this family, she is treated with snobbery and superciliousness. However, her cousins, expecially her cousin Edmund, treat her more kindly and with more affection and respect than the adults. Edmund is her true friend and Fanny looks up to him as a protector and guide.
Now, Fanny grows to be a young lady of great decorum and prudence, and begins to win over her uncle and aunt, and her relationship with Edmund strengthens. But then, new arrivals into the society of the area threaten to disrupt her peaceful, decorous life and deprive her of happiness in love.
I won't tell you the end because then you wouldn't read the book! I found this book captivating and even realistic, as it shows the difficulties of living life decently when others are different and strong-willed in their vices or imprudent behaviour. The plot flows smoothly, and the reader feels sympathetic to the heroine's plight, as they should. And of course, Jane Austen's style of writing is superb and enthralling. Needless to say, in the end, the heroine Fanny makes like a Mountie and gets her man. :)Read Mansfield Park and send me your impressions. I will put them here for others to read. Send them to:
zanrae@hotmail.com
For those of you who may be interested in the last selection, Jane Eyre, click here!
Or for the selection before that (Oliver Twist), click here!Here are some of my favourite authors and books:
AUSTEN, Jane -- all of her works
BRONTE, Anne, Charlotte, Emily -- all works
COOPER, James Fenimore -- The Last of the Mohicans
DICKENS, Charles -- all works
ELIOT, George -- Silas Marner, Middlemarch
MARSHALL, Catherine -- Christy
SCOTT, Walter -- Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, The Talisman, etc
SHAKESPEARE, William -- all works, mostlyAs promised, here is the link to the on-line Amazon bookstore:
Amazon On-line Bookstore