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Book #4
Title: Robinson Crusoe
Author: Daniel Defoe
Pages: 296
Reason: School
Grade: C
Summary: Widely regarded as the first English novel, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is one of the most popular and influential adventure stories of all time. This classic tale of shipwreck and survival on an uninhabited island was an instant success when first published in 1719 and has inspired countless imitations.
In his own words, Robinson Crusoe tells of the terrible storm that drowned all his shipmates and left him marooned on a deserted island. Forced to overcome despair, doubt, and self-pity, he struggles to create a life for himself in the wilderness. From practically nothing, Crusoe painstakingly learns how to make pottery, grow crops, domesticate livestock, and build a house. His many adventures are recounted in vivid detail, including a fierce battle with cannibals and his rescue of Friday, the man who becomes his trusted companion.
Full of enchanting detail and daring heroics, Robinson Crusoe is a celebration of courage, patience, ingenuity, and hard work.
Review: I expected to be highly entertained by this novel, but instead I was actually quite bored. Crusoe isn't a very sympathetic character, and there is so much redundancy in the novel that it gets incredibly tiresome. There were some exciting parts, and I can see the value in the novel in the literary canon, but I won't read it again.
#5
Title: The Blithedale Romance
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Pages: 247
Reason: School
Grade: B+
Summary: Book Description
1894. Hawthorne, who, like Edgar Allan Poe, took a dark view of human nature, was a central figure in the American Renaissance. His best-known works include The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. Renouncing the city for a pastoral life, a group of utopians set out to reform a dissipated America. But the group is a powerful mix of competing ambitions and its idealism finds little satisfaction in farmwork. Instead, of changing the world, the members of the Blithedale community individually pursue egotistical paths that ultimately lead to tragedy. Hawthorne's tale both mourns and satirizes a rural idyll not unlike that of nineteenth-century America at large. The Blithedale Romance shadows the Brook Farm, in Roxbury, which was occupied and cultivated by a company of socialists.
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. It read quite a bit like a soap opera, with all the who loves who and who's manipulating who. Coverdale, the narrator, is delightfully naive; Zenobia, the gorgeous woman with sensuality to spare, is bewitching and selfish; Priscilla, the waif, is sweet and endearing; and Hollingsworth, the philanthropist, is in turns charming and deplorable. I won't go on too much about this book, as I will be making a class post about it tomorrow.
#6
Title: The Hobbit
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Pages: 287
Reason: Pleasure
Grade: A
Summary: Amazon.com
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
The hobbit-hole in question belongs to one Bilbo Baggins, an upstanding member of a "little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves." He is, like most of his kind, well off, well fed, and best pleased when sitting by his own fire with a pipe, a glass of good beer, and a meal to look forward to. Certainly this particular hobbit is the last person one would expect to see set off on a hazardous journey; indeed, when Gandalf the Grey stops by one morning, "looking for someone to share in an adventure," Baggins fervently wishes the wizard elsewhere. No such luck, however; soon 13 fortune-seeking dwarves have arrived on the hobbit's doorstep in search of a burglar, and before he can even grab his hat or an umbrella, Bilbo Baggins is swept out his door and into a dangerous adventure.
The dwarves' goal is to return to their ancestral home in the Lonely Mountains and reclaim a stolen fortune from the dragon Smaug. Along the way, they and their reluctant companion meet giant spiders, hostile elves, ravening wolves--and, most perilous of all, a subterranean creature named Gollum from whom Bilbo wins a magical ring in a riddling contest. It is from this life-or-death game in the dark that J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, would eventually spring. Though The Hobbit is lighter in tone than the trilogy that follows, it has, like Bilbo Baggins himself, unexpected iron at its core. Don't be fooled by its fairy-tale demeanor; this is very much a story for adults, though older children will enjoy it, too. By the time Bilbo returns to his comfortable hobbit-hole, he is a different person altogether, well primed for the bigger adventures to come--and so is the reader.
Review: I LOVED this book. I can't believe I hadn't read it before! I found it very entertaining, and even though there was a lot of action and danger, it was nice and light. A great counterbalance to Robinson Crusoe! I really liked Bilbo, which was surprising, because if I remember right, I didn't much care for him in The Lord of the Rings. The dwarves were so comical and charming. Beorn was fantastic. Gandalf always seems so wimpy, though, it's like he never uses his powers. I will definitely read this again.
Title: Robinson Crusoe
Author: Daniel Defoe
Pages: 296
Reason: School
Grade: C
Summary: Widely regarded as the first English novel, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is one of the most popular and influential adventure stories of all time. This classic tale of shipwreck and survival on an uninhabited island was an instant success when first published in 1719 and has inspired countless imitations.
In his own words, Robinson Crusoe tells of the terrible storm that drowned all his shipmates and left him marooned on a deserted island. Forced to overcome despair, doubt, and self-pity, he struggles to create a life for himself in the wilderness. From practically nothing, Crusoe painstakingly learns how to make pottery, grow crops, domesticate livestock, and build a house. His many adventures are recounted in vivid detail, including a fierce battle with cannibals and his rescue of Friday, the man who becomes his trusted companion.
Full of enchanting detail and daring heroics, Robinson Crusoe is a celebration of courage, patience, ingenuity, and hard work.
Review: I expected to be highly entertained by this novel, but instead I was actually quite bored. Crusoe isn't a very sympathetic character, and there is so much redundancy in the novel that it gets incredibly tiresome. There were some exciting parts, and I can see the value in the novel in the literary canon, but I won't read it again.
#5
Title: The Blithedale Romance
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Pages: 247
Reason: School
Grade: B+
Summary: Book Description
1894. Hawthorne, who, like Edgar Allan Poe, took a dark view of human nature, was a central figure in the American Renaissance. His best-known works include The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. Renouncing the city for a pastoral life, a group of utopians set out to reform a dissipated America. But the group is a powerful mix of competing ambitions and its idealism finds little satisfaction in farmwork. Instead, of changing the world, the members of the Blithedale community individually pursue egotistical paths that ultimately lead to tragedy. Hawthorne's tale both mourns and satirizes a rural idyll not unlike that of nineteenth-century America at large. The Blithedale Romance shadows the Brook Farm, in Roxbury, which was occupied and cultivated by a company of socialists.
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. It read quite a bit like a soap opera, with all the who loves who and who's manipulating who. Coverdale, the narrator, is delightfully naive; Zenobia, the gorgeous woman with sensuality to spare, is bewitching and selfish; Priscilla, the waif, is sweet and endearing; and Hollingsworth, the philanthropist, is in turns charming and deplorable. I won't go on too much about this book, as I will be making a class post about it tomorrow.
#6
Title: The Hobbit
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Pages: 287
Reason: Pleasure
Grade: A
Summary: Amazon.com
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
The hobbit-hole in question belongs to one Bilbo Baggins, an upstanding member of a "little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves." He is, like most of his kind, well off, well fed, and best pleased when sitting by his own fire with a pipe, a glass of good beer, and a meal to look forward to. Certainly this particular hobbit is the last person one would expect to see set off on a hazardous journey; indeed, when Gandalf the Grey stops by one morning, "looking for someone to share in an adventure," Baggins fervently wishes the wizard elsewhere. No such luck, however; soon 13 fortune-seeking dwarves have arrived on the hobbit's doorstep in search of a burglar, and before he can even grab his hat or an umbrella, Bilbo Baggins is swept out his door and into a dangerous adventure.
The dwarves' goal is to return to their ancestral home in the Lonely Mountains and reclaim a stolen fortune from the dragon Smaug. Along the way, they and their reluctant companion meet giant spiders, hostile elves, ravening wolves--and, most perilous of all, a subterranean creature named Gollum from whom Bilbo wins a magical ring in a riddling contest. It is from this life-or-death game in the dark that J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, would eventually spring. Though The Hobbit is lighter in tone than the trilogy that follows, it has, like Bilbo Baggins himself, unexpected iron at its core. Don't be fooled by its fairy-tale demeanor; this is very much a story for adults, though older children will enjoy it, too. By the time Bilbo returns to his comfortable hobbit-hole, he is a different person altogether, well primed for the bigger adventures to come--and so is the reader.
Review: I LOVED this book. I can't believe I hadn't read it before! I found it very entertaining, and even though there was a lot of action and danger, it was nice and light. A great counterbalance to Robinson Crusoe! I really liked Bilbo, which was surprising, because if I remember right, I didn't much care for him in The Lord of the Rings. The dwarves were so comical and charming. Beorn was fantastic. Gandalf always seems so wimpy, though, it's like he never uses his powers. I will definitely read this again.