Jane Austen's Letters

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Jane Austen famously labeled her literary ambit a "little bit (two inches wide) of ivory." Luckily, her personal travels and those of her family were slightly more extensive, otherwise we should be without her letters. Not only should every Janeite possess them, but also every connoisseur of correspondence. Austen's wit is ubiquitous--even though some protest it edges into waspishness. E. M. Forster, for example, described the letters between Austen and her beloved sister, Cassandra, as "the whinnying of harpies."

On September 18, 1796, she tells Cassandra, "What dreadful Hot weather we have!--It keeps one in a continual state of Inelegance.--If Miss Pearson should return with me, pray be careful not to expect too much Beauty..." The dashes and capitalization alone make one long for the days before stylistic rules had so cemented. As for the sentiments! Austen paces her monologues to perfection, making the comic and ironic most out of the smallest incidents. Still, her frustration does occasionally emerge. "I am forced to be abusive," she implodes to Cassandra, "for want of a subject, having nothing really to say." Jane Austen has more than enough to say for lovers of literature and the cultural pinprick.

Book Description

Jane Austen's letters afford a unique insight into the daily life of the novelist: intimate and gossipy, observant and informative, they bring alive her family and friends, her surroundings and contemporary events with a freshness unparalleled in modern biographies. Above all we recognize the unmistakable voice of the author of Pride and Prejudice, witty and amusing as she describes the social life of town and country, thoughtful and constructive when writing about the business of literary composition. R. W. Chapman's ground-breaking edition of the collected Letters first appeared in 1932, and a second edition followed twenty years later. For this third edition Deidre Le Faye has added new material that has come to light since 1952, and re- ordered the letters into their correct chronological sequence. She has provided discreet and full annotation to each letter, including its provenance, and information on the watermarks, postmarks, and other physical details of the manuscripts, together with new biographical, topographical, and general indexes.

Customer Reviews:

Shoddy treatment of such valuable things!.......2007-09-10

I dare not argue with the importance of Jane Austen's letters, nor with the pleasure to be obtained by reading them. This edition, however, is the poorest-bound book I have ever seen! I just received it in the mail, and the copyright page has already fallen out. The margins are equally dismal, and I am afraid one reading will finish the whole thing off. Buy this edition if you must, but find a better copy if you can.

Great insight into an author who didn't write enough!.......2007-08-30

I think all Austen fans lament her early death - only six completed novels just isn't enough!

These letters do help fill that gap. Austen was smart, honest, funny; you can hear her voice so clearly in these letters. It is a shame that her sister destroyed most of her letters before she died (since she thought they were too indecent or personal or just downright mean!), but I allow Austen SOME privacy! These letters are just wonderful.

The only slight drawback is that, as a lay person, the layout was a little cumbersome. I'm not a Regency expert, so I needed to keep flipping back to the explanatory notes to understand the language. That flipping became annoying at times. I would prefer to have the notes at the bottom of the page so I could scan them without leaving the body of the letter. Just a personal preference thing, though.

Disintegrating letters........2007-05-19

I had already read Jane Austen's letters but wanted to have my own copy. They give a fascintating insight into her life, although somewhat limited by the fact that her sister Cassandra burnt all of Jane's leters to her after Jane's death. Unfortunately the copy I have recently bought is poorly bound and the pages started coming loose the first time I opened it. I just couldn't be bothered returning the book from New Zealand.

The Best Source For Austen-ites Ever!.......2006-03-15

This is the best edition of Austen's letters ever published. It includes recently discovered letters from Jane Austen or about Jane Austen. It also provides details regarding the postmarks on the letters and an index (with description!) of the many people, servants and friends in Austen's life. While this book doesn't provide much cultural context or criticism, serious students of Jane Austen will learn more about Austen's authorial project and her daily life. While we can never know Austen as a person, we can get a sense of her life, her family, and the pressures she faced on an intimate level. It is interesting to find the paralells between Austen's letters and her novels. Astute readers will find that Austen was witty and sarcastic outside of her novels as well. I used this book as a resource in a college class in which we only read Austen's novels, and found her Letters to open up the texts in suprising ways. An excellent tool that should be part of your Austen collection!

A Must Have for the English Regency reference shelf.......2002-09-25

Primary sources are always the best in understanding the mindset of a period. Here we have a thick collection of Jane Austen's letters, which have been very well annotated by the editor. The contrast between the Memoirs of Harriette Wilson (who lived in the same period, published by the famous courtesan in 1825) are hilarious. Witty but staidly Anglican Jane at one point savagely attacks the very high aristocrats romping their scandalous way through Harriette's world, that "race of Pagets". Jane Austen's letters let us have a glimpses of what daily life in the English gentry and aristocratic class was like in Regency England; seeemingly trivial details such as the buying of Wedgwood china with the personal crest, buying the breakfast set separate to the other china sets (longing to see what a Regency breakfast set looked like! The breakfast set is mentioned in Sense and Sensibility) are actually very difficult to find out about, it is not something historians generally write about. The notes by the editor are fascinating and could lead to further research, for example how did one lord prove his title after being a Dublin potboy? And the gentleman who divorced his wife after the proper lady decided to become a professional actress...usually it was the other way around, the actress became a proper lady! The biographical details added by the editor on various gentry/aristocratic families mentioned in Jane Austen's letters are very tantalising.

Average customer rating:

Global cooling
Good, not great
Sorry to have finished it
An Epic of 14th Century Greenland
Haunting and unforgettable.

Greenlanders, The
Jane Smiley
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0394551206
Release Date: 1988-03-12

Book Description

"HAUNTING."
--The New York Times Book Review
Jane Smiley, the Pultizer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres, gives us a magnificent novel of fourteenth-century Greenland. Rich with fascinating detail about the day-to-day joys and innumerable hardships of remarkable people, The Greenlanders is also the compelling story of one family--proud landowner Asgeir Gunnarsson; his daughter Margret, whose willful independence leads her into passionate adultery and exile; and his son Gunnar, whose quest for knowledge is at the compelling center of this unforgettable book. Echoing the simple power of the old Norse sagas, here is a novel that brings a remote civilization to life and shows how it was very like our own.
"TOTALLY COMPELLING . . . FASCINATING . . . In the manner of the big books of the nineteenth century, in which complex family and community matters unravel--Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy--The Greenlanders sweeps the reader along. . . . Jane Smiley is a true storyteller."
--The Washington Post
"A POWERFUL, MOVING STUDY OF HUMAN FRAILTY AND THE EPHEMERAL NATURE OF COURAGE AND LOVE."
--USA Today
"WONDERFUL . . . A HISTORICAL NOVEL WITH THE NEARNESS OF CONTEMPORARY FICTION."
--The New Republic
"[AN] EPIC MASTERPIECE . . . SPELLBINDING."
--Newsday

Customer Reviews:

Global cooling.......2007-08-25

Today I read a news article about Greenland entitled "Climate Change Is a Mixed Bag for Inuit." I had to smile at that since I have just finished reading Smiley's book, which recreates the society of Greenland at the end of the 1300's when the problem was global COOLING. Nowadays, the fjords are ice free by April or May (instead of July): that contrasts with the ice and hard winters coming earlier and earlier for the ancient Greenlanders. Then, farms were abandoned, people died of disease and starvation, the Inuit had to come further south to hunt. And Smiley even contrasts this to the hardy folk and explorations of Erik the Red's time. Who knows? Maybe as our own century proceeds, we will see farmers again in Greenland!!
This extraordinary novel spins out many of the conflicts of the time: between and within families, between the Church and the old Nordic laws represented by the dwindling number of lawsayers, between the old culture of "riches" and the rapidly approaching destitution, between the settlers and the Inuit. The book is so rich in theme and character; the reader will find many more conflicts to mull over. Most of all, in the lives of these people, we see ourselves in all of life's cycles. Smiley's style evokes the way these people thought and talked, with a predominance of the old Anglo-Saxon lexicon that is our heritage as English speakers.
This eloquent book is in the great tradition of "Kristin Lavransdatter" by Sigrid Undset (the translation by Charles Archer had me mesmerized) and "Giants in the Earth" by Rolvaag.

Good, not great.......2007-05-28

I'm a huge fan of hers. There were a few things that I didn't like about this one:
1) Too long and repetitive. 1/4 could have been pruned
2) Weak character development
3) Confusing at parts

Sorry to have finished it.......2007-05-01

A really good read. This spare and yet rich tale spun out over generations had me longing for a loom and a trencher of dried reindeer meat. As I turned the last page, I ruefully left my paperback time-travel machine and returned to the time of packaged foods and incandescent lighting.

An Epic of 14th Century Greenland.......2007-01-14

This book reads and is written as an epic, a sprawling novel, illustrating the customs, weather, beliefs, habits, and lifestyle of the people of Greenland in the Middle Ages. There is a lot of detail, about hunting parties, shoes, tiny beds built into walls, imaginary creatures, and most importantly the relationships of the people.

Haunting and unforgettable. .......2006-07-16

I first read this book soon after it came out in 1988 or `89, and its magic has never left me even after having reread it more than once since. The story, written in spare but illuminating saga style and historically accurate as far as it's known, vividly fleshes out a time and place, a society struggling to survive while being virtually forgotten by the outside world, a society of which many today are unaware that it ever existed. The novel spans generations, set during the latter half of the 1300s to early 1400s (some evidence indicates that the last Greenland Norse remnants in the Eastern Settlement may have held on into the early 1500s). Although its two widely separated settled areas never numbered more than a total of perhaps five thousand persons at the max, to ask why it disappeared is, in a real sense, to put the cart before the horse. As the late geographer Carl O. Sauer reminded us in his 1968 book "Northern Mists," the first thing to be asked -- the obverse, the first side of the question of why Norse Greenland failed -- is how it survived for five hundred years. This remarkable medieval people endured over a span as long as that of the Roman Empire and a century longer than the American culture has yet done since the first permanent English settlements of the early 1600s with far more support from overseas. With a sure hand Smiley portrays a distinctive slice of humanity in all its strengths, weaknesses, capacity for good and evil, fallability, wisdom, and stoic acceptance of its own mortality. Unlike some more recent writing of hers I've seen, the author essentially "tells it like it is," and in the manner of a true saga lets the chips fall where they may -- thus allowing the reader to make one's own judgments. This book is a masterpiece.

The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer

Average customer rating:

Good but not great
I DID NOT AGREE WITH ALL OF IT BUT LIKED IT
Hardhitting, true, and very sad
Fertile Food for Thought for The Thinking Human
A FINE WORK - on a tragic subject.

The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer
Victor Davis Hanson
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0684845016

Amazon.com

Victor Davis Hanson, a California professor of classical history and a sixth-generation orchard-keeper, revisits an old tradition in American letters, writing social criticism from an agrarian point of view that takes the farmer to be the foundation of any democracy worthy of the name. That Jeffersonian argument is not widely aired these days, apart from the essays of Wendell Berry and a few like-minded nature writers, and it takes on a specifically political force in Hanson's thoughtful, sometimes angry meditations on the decline of farming and the virtuous values that farming once instilled.

The enemies of farming are many, Hanson declares. They number not only drought, insects, fire, and fungi, but also political leaders who are content to watch the fertile countryside be carved into arid seas of look-alike homes, housing consumers who demand factory-issued foods in all seasons. Their demands are met--and, barring disaster, will continue to be met--by corporate agriculture, which, Hanson holds, values appearance over taste and prizes short-term profits over the long-term health of the land. The ascendance of that corporate system of food production means that fewer and fewer small farms can survive, and that agriculture will seem an ever more alien enterprise to the coming generations, conducted far off in the hinterland, "the corporate void where no sane man wishes to live."

This all means, Hanson suggests, that the farmer of old who knew how to fix tractors and fences, how to wage war on predators while shunning the use of poisons, and how to live self-reliantly is a thing of the past. The disappearance of that American archetype is all to the bad. As Hanson writes, "We have lost our agrarian landscape and with it the insurance that there would be an autonomous, outspoken, and critical group of citizens eager to remind us of the current fads and follies of the day." Resounding with righteous fury and good common sense, his book is a call to turn back the clock and set a more civilized table. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

Before storms that can destroy his crops in an instant, the farmer stands implacable. To fluctuations in temperature that can deprive his children of their future, the farmer pays no heed. Every day the elements remind him that his future is secure only through constant effort. Like the creepers and crawlers he seeks to eradicate, the farmer toils away in the lush anonymity of his grid of vines, his tradition one of impervious resolve.

Today that tradition of muscular, self-effacing labor is quietly disappearing, as the last of America's independent farmers slowly fade away. When they have gone, what will we have lost? In The Land Was Everything, Victor Davis Hanson, an embattled fifth-generation California grape farmer and passionate, eloquent writer, answers this question by offering a final snapshot of the yeoman, his work, and his wisdom.

Over two centuries ago, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur wrote the bestselling Letters from an American Farmer. It was the first formal expression of what it meant to be American, a celebration of free, land-working men and women as the building blocks of enlightened democracy. Hanson, like Crèvecoeur, begins with the premise that "farmers see things as others do not." He shows that there is worth in the farmer beyond the best price of raisins or apples per pound, beyond his ability to provide fruit out of season, hard, shiny, and round. Why is it, then, that the farmer is so at odds with global culture at the millennium? What makes the farmer so special?

To find the answer Hanson digs deeply within himself. The farmer's value is not to be found in pastoral stereotypes -- myths that farmers are simple and farming serene. It is something more fundamental.

The independent farmer, in his lonely, do-or-die struggle, is tangible proof that there is still a place for heroism in America. In the farmer's unflinching, remorseless realities -- rain and sun, hail and early frost -- lie the best of humanity tested: stoicism, surprising intelligence, and the determination that comes from fighting battles, tractor against vine, that must be replicated a thousand or a hundred thousand times if a farmer is to have even a chance of success. There is, writes Hanson, an "awful knowledge gained from agriculture" and a "measure of brutality that even the most humane farmer cannot escape from or hide." It is this terrible knowledge, these hard-fought battles against man, self, and nature's unseen enemies, that Hanson celebrates.

Today the city, Crèvecoeur's "confined theatre of cupidity," is triumphant. But those who have stuck to a difficult task will see that they have much in common with Hanson's dying farmer. That the land was everything once made America great and democracy strong. Will we still like what we are -- and can we survive as we are -- when the land is nothing?

Customer Reviews:

Good but not great .......2005-05-09

I find the book interesting for about a chapter. Too much 'showing off' Hansen's professororial interests on Crevecouer and the Greeks and Romans. Yes both historical references are fascinating but Hansen needs help with his tone and the very miring way he has about going to prove a point. You can start to predict the next sentence and the way it will end up satisfying the author's conscience. No, the book is not at all eloquent, but it doesn't make up for it with anything genuinely new and insightful either, for instance: on the agricultural dilemmas of our country and how they affect farmers personally. It is a book that blows off steam basically; finds a way to boast about the rough-hewn character of farmers (Not to be taken so literally, but nevertheless he manages to stereotype the farmer though he despises everyone else for doing it.)Wishy washy on his opinions, Hansen can't really whitewash what he thinks: that we are a bunch of suburban immoralists who just learned that the farm meant more than bucolic. Anyone who reads or watches the news or buys food at all knows more than Hansen thinks we do. As an ex-farm child, I find the book a fair tribute, but the personality of it is almost repulsive. We farmers are not superior keepers of wisdom, we are far more humble than Hansen's ilk. The farmers I know, past and present, have more important things to do than debate every issue, write books and books on our sorrows and fawn over our own demise.

I DID NOT AGREE WITH ALL OF IT BUT LIKED IT.......2004-09-11

This is certainly a wonderfully written book. I cannot agree with all of the author's opinions, nor his historical data, but he does make some good points and the book is well worth the read. It gives a point of view from the farmer's side, always a good thing, but that being said, it must also be noted that the author needs to face reality. I do recommend this one though and will probably read it again myself. A good one to add to your collection. Thank you Mr Hanson.

Hardhitting, true, and very sad.......2002-06-20

Agrarianism goes down to a hard and dusty death. The realities of growing commodities as a family in California are tough. Hanson does know what he's talking about, contra reader S.M. Stirling, below (I wonder if this fellow even read the book, his comments are so off, not to mention being practically a personal attack on Hanson); he lives the reality of this difficult life while also being a classical scholar. He seems uniquely qualified to illuminate the Greek and Latin roots of agrarianism as the foundation of democracy, and with a lifelong interest in the classics, I found this very interesting; I learned a lot. I highly recommend this book, which I found compelling...

Fertile Food for Thought for The Thinking Human.......2001-11-23

This is one of those few books that I enjoyed and thought about so much that I bought six copies from Amazon to hand out to friends who I believed would also appreciate Hanson's efforts. It really is that exceptional! The thing most notable about "The Land Is Everything" is how much response it will provoke out of you if are a "thinking type". That doesn't mean you will love or hate it all...you will, however, THINK! Despite the definite order the book is arranged in, you will get a sense that much of it was almost written in streams of thought. Hanson seems to meander on tangents at times and in other places even rants but, this stream is still flowing briskly! He focusses in on "Man versus Nature", "Man versus Man", and "Man versus Self" in the realm of small-scale farming.

Hanson is uniquely qualified to write about the subject of farming and it's effects on character. He is a fifth generation grape farmer in California while also a Professor of Classics at CSU Fresno. The clincher is that he can convey his beliefs to paper with a VENGEANCE! The crux of this book is showing how the decline of self-reliant family farms in America is sapping the core character of what an "American" was in our first 200 years. He passionately describes the life, both good and bad, of the American farmer and gives numerous examples of issues that influence his/her character and culture. The fact that America, up until fairly recently, was predominantly a land of farmers is elaborated on at length. Hanson admires and respects the ways the brutal realities of farming the land force farmers to stay literally rooted in hard work, ethics, and honesty even if it sometimes makes them crazy! He then launches into his assessments of the effects on the gradual loss of this culture on the United States today as it becomes more and more "urban" and "cosmopolitan".

One thing I can almost promise: you WILL have an opinion on this book once you've read it. There will be points that you will agree or disagree with strongly and many others that will fall somewhere in between. The bottom line is that you will definitely feel better for having read it.

Finally, if you have found yourself drawn to understand the heroism and motivation of the New York City fireman who fought and died at the World Trade Center attack on 9/11, I doubly recommend this book.

A FINE WORK - on a tragic subject........2000-06-15

As a graduate student in the university (stumbling along the first steps of academia) while at the same time dragging my small farm roots along, I find Victor Hanson's appraisal and insightful commentary frighteningly real to much of my own experience and upbringing. The Land Was Everything is exceptional and comprehensive in outlining a picture of rural life and ideology that most urbanites and farmers alike are not consciously aware of. He writes about the loss of the small farm agrarian but mostly he mourns the loss of characteristics and qualities that come from the farmer, his work, his life, and his toil. To most readers (the growing sea of concrete city folk) his words and stories feel alien and distant and sadly this further proves the author's point. Hanson's unique and diminishing perspective reads as a bitingly honest commentary about where we (as a nation) have come from, where we owe our success, the price of our success, and where we're going in this new millenium. Grounded in the fields and orchards of farming and agrarian life, Hanson demonstrates his intellect and skills of observation in the manner of a scholarly writer and though agrarian and intellectual often antagonize one another within the writing, he is successful at utilizing them to expose and comment on the other. If understanding and consciousness about any of this is the reward for the loss of the small American Farmer, then it's all I could ask for as a reader who wishes that others would pick up The Land Was Everything, listen to its pages, remember the voices of their past, and try to understand the tragedy that has already occurred.

More Letters From Pemberley: 1814-1819: A Further Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Average customer rating:

One of the best Austin sequels.....
Well written and enjoyable!
A little too sad but worthwhile
Starts as good as the fist, BUT . . .
More letters from Pemberly

More Letters From Pemberley: 1814-1819: A Further Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
Jane Dawkins
Manufacturer: iUniverse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0595283721

Book Description

Letters from Pemberley, Jane Dawkins's popular continuation of Pride and Prejudice, described Elizabeth Bennet's first year at Pemberley as the newly wed Mrs. Darcy. More Letters From Pemberley picks up the story in 1814 and follows the life of one of literature's best loved figures for another six years to the twilight of the Regency period in 1819.

Again incorporating Jane Austen's own words and characters from her other works (who appear with different names, either associated with Austen's life, borrowed from another of her novels, or a word-play on their original name), Jane Dawkins has pieced together another literary patchwork quilt. The result is an entertaining and satisfying tale which Â…will surely delight Jane Austen fans, and please the many readers of Letters From Pemberley who asked for more.

Customer Reviews:

One of the best Austin sequels............2007-08-27

The format of this book is unique and interesting. The author has taken great care to write in the style of the Regency period. The characters, for the most part were dealt with in a manner true to the original stories. A great summer afternoon read.

Well written and enjoyable!.......2007-06-18

This was a very fast read but to anyone that loves Darcy and Elizabeth this is a must own! As in the first book, the letters are compelling and so well written that you can certainly follow what has happened through out the years -- and not wonder about possible gaps. Enjoyable from the first letter to the last!

A little too sad but worthwhile.......2007-03-09

Like its predecessor, this was a very easy and pleasant read. At one point, a little too sad and tragic for me but pleasing overall. The book provides a satisfying portrayal of the Darcys. As was Letters from Pemberley: The First Year, this is one of the better sequels to PnP.

Starts as good as the fist, BUT . . . .......2006-10-18

P&P is one of my favorite books. I love Jane Austen so much that I did an independent study in college on Jane Austen! I bought both Letters books based on customer reviews that I would not be disappointed. The first was wonderful, and the second began that way, but loving Austen the way I do, I can trust her not to induce tears. This book became heart wrenching toward the end. I escape to other worlds when this one is too harsh, so being slapped in the face with such raw tragedy here was both unexpected and more than troublesome.

I wish I had left off with the first book.

More letters from Pemberly.......2006-07-04

What a delight this book is! If you are familiar with Austin's other works besides Pride and Prejudice, you pick up on who the letters are addressed to. This book is like receiving letters from dear friends.

Average customer rating:

Boring
Sweet, but unoriginal
Fabulous - Terrific - Must Read for Austen Fans
Amusing look into Mrs. Darcy's new life
"An old-fashioned patchwork quilt"

Letters from Pemberley the First Year
Jane Dawkins
Manufacturer: Authors Choice Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0595276954

Book Description

In this continuation to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, one of the best-loved novels in the English language, Elizabeth Bennet, now Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy and mistress of Pemberley, finds herself in a very different league of wealth and privilege. Writing to her sister, Jane, she confides her uncertainty and anxieties, and describes the every-day of her new life. Her first year at Pemberley is sometimes bewildering but Lizzy's spirited sense of humor and satirical eye never desert her.

Incorporating Jane Austen's own words and characters from her other works (who appear here with different names, either associated with Austen's life, borrowed from another of her novels, or a word-play on their original name), Jane Dawkins pieces together a literary patchwork quilt to tell the story of Lizzy's first eventful year as Mrs. Darcy. The result is an entertaining and satisfying tale, which will surely delight Jane Austen fans everywhere.

Customer Reviews:

Boring.......2007-10-02

I found this book boring and not up to the reviews I read here. It didn't have the same sense of sly humor present in Austen's work.

Sweet, but unoriginal.......2007-09-17

I have to admit myself disappointed by this book. While it is sweet, the format of it allows for no dialogue, by definition of course. But the witty dialogue between Elizabeth and Darcy is the most fun part about P&P. Also, the author mercilessly steals characters from other Jane Austen books. The Norlands are there, cameoing as themselves. That is not so bad because there story does take place in Derbyshire and so is appropriate. But there is a Emma/Knightly couple, given another name but their story is exactly the same. There is also a Mr./Mrs. Elton couple, again under a different name but the characters are exact. I find this just plain laziness. Please, give us some freshness!

It is a quick read, and nice for that feeling of escape to elegant times. But so far it is my least favorite of the Jane Austen fan fiction I have read this past year. My favorite is An Assembly Such as This, told from Darcy's perspective. That is a three volume series and gives you new characters, and plots to get involved in. Much more fun than this book.

That all being said I may read the sequel, because as I said it is lighthearted and pretty to read. But, as with the first, I will get it at the library rather than spend the money for it.

Fabulous - Terrific - Must Read for Austen Fans.......2007-08-17

I believe there are a multitude of devoted fans who have read Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, loved it, and wanted to see it continue. With this book, LETTERS FROM PEMBERLEY, author Jane Dawkins does an admirable job of what could be. She is not necessarily trying to write a sequel in Ms. Austen's style; as this would be impossible, but gives a believable look at Elizabeth's life through a series of letters to her sister Jane during the first year of her marriage. These letters, all written by Elizabeth bring back fond memories of lovable characters from both the book and the BBC series (which I've watched numerous times) and introduces new characters as well.

I say now, I liked this book! The letters, all written by Elizabeth to her beloved sister Jane, were concise enough for the reader to read between the lines and able to imagine Jane's responses. Elizabeth's letters were witty and lively describing her initial discomfiture at becoming the mistress of such a grand estate and how worried she was at making a good impression in front of Mr. Darcy's friends; knowing full well, that in their mind Darcy had married beneath him.

What I found so very sweet were the lovely and thoughtful things Mr. Darcy did to ease Elizabeth's path into feeling like Pemberley was indeed her home, and how she described how very dear her Mr. Darcy truly was after her initial harsh determination of his character. And of course, I laughed out loud when she made mention of their mother's (Mrs. Bennet) `nerves' and how `vexed' she could get with her two elder married daughters.

In Elizabeth's letters, one is able to see the joy she has found in her new life with new friends she's met as well as keeping up with the daily lives of past friends, such as her friend Charlotte, who married Mr. Collins; her selfish sister Lydia (now Mrs. Wickam) and a multitude of other acquaintances during her first year at Pemberley. I was fully engrossed from the first letter to the last, and so wish there were more. For all Jane Austen fans, this is definitely a must read!

Marilyn Rondeau, RIO - Reviewers International Organization, for www.TheMysticCastle.com

Amusing look into Mrs. Darcy's new life.......2007-08-15

Dawkins really captured the feeling of Pride and Prejudice in Letters from Pemberley, especially Lizzy's wit and sense of humor. A bit of warning to the future reader though - this isn't really a book with a goal in mind.

Dawkins offers a peek into the new Mrs. Darcy's letters. Just imagine a time without phones and e-mail, when your correspondence is a part of your daily routine, reading letters over breakfast and responding to them. Maybe I'm just old fashioned like that, as I still enjoy writing and receiving snail mail. The action doesn't focus on Lizzy and Darcy; it just gives the reader the details of the year after their marriage, introducing some new characters while staying true to those we've already met in the original novel.

One of my favorite parts of this book was when Lizzy described Darcy's attempt to obtain the services of a certain artist to capture her likeness for the Pemberley gallery. She jokes to Darcy that the artist probably considers his skills above capturing "merely tolerable beauty." Darcy then fires back that in response to this, he would write to the artist:

"On the contrary, his wife's incomparable perfections are marred only by a head filled with fanciful nonsense, the result of an excellent memory and a cruel fondness for teasing an adoring Husband who surely deserves better treatment at her hand."

It's really an interesting book to read, as it really does feel like the way Lizzy would write and I'm glad Dawkins didn't dishonor the tone of Pride and Prejudice. I would sometimes think that I'd like to read a "Letters from Netherfield," but it wouldn't be as amusing because Jane's too nice to poke fun at people.

"An old-fashioned patchwork quilt".......2007-07-30

As the title implies, Letters from Pemberley: The First Year is a series of twenty-five letters from the new Mrs. Darcy (aka Elizabeth Bennet) to her sister, the new Mrs. Bingley (aka Jane Bennet). Readers of Pride and Prejudice will remember that a letter played an important part in changing Elizabeth's feelings about Darcy, so Dawkins choice of letters as her medium fits quite well.

Dawkins described her work as "an old-fashioned patchwork quilt, where in place of the scraps of fabric . . . there is a line or a phrase or a sentence from one of Jane Austen's books or letters stitched alongside the lesser scraps" of Dawkins' work. She also took favorite characters from other Austen novels, gave them different names, and worked them into Lizzie's letters. It was very amusing to pick out who was who or which lines were from which books or letters (I even kept a little list! It is quite gratifying to figure these things out!).

I quite enjoyed Letters from Pemberley: The First Year and was glad that Dawkins did not feel the need to make Lizzie, Darcy, Jane, Bingley, Georgiana, and other characters new again. We read Jane Austen novels repeatedly because Jane created such realistic and fabulous characters. I think too often people try to "improve" upon them, which just cannot be done. Dawkins also understands this and wrote these letters in Lizzie Bennet Darcy's persona, not some other Lizzie's. I can easily imagine Jane having written these herself.

Lizzie is adjusting to life as mistress of Pemberley and wife of Mr. Darcy, attempting to develop a deeper relationship with Darcy's sister, Georgiana, and find her place in a higher level of society than she is used to living in. As much as her family drove her crazy on occasion, she misses being with them. Her letters to Jane describe her activities, her feelings, and her hopes.

Elizabeth and Jane are closest to each other out of the five Bennet daughters and their letters provide solace as they make their ways in their new lives. I can imagine doing the same with my sister (if she wrote letters).

I look forward to reading Letters from Pemberley: The First Year again (and figuring out more of Jane's lines!) and would recommend it to any Austen fan!

Sam's Letters to Jennifer (Patterson, James)

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Sappy story
Fears for Patterson's Tears
Great story
I truly enjoyable book!
Enjoyable and addicting

Sam's Letters to Jennifer (Patterson, James)
James Patterson
Manufacturer: Hachette Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 1586216325

Book Description

James Patterson's #1 New York Times bestseller combines two unforgettable love stories in a novel that's impossible to put down. Jennifer returns to the resort village where she grew up to help her ailing, beloved grandmother-and ends up experiencing not one but two of the most amazing love stories she's ever known. The first is completely unexpected. In a series of letters that Jennifer finds, her grandmother reveals that she has concealed a huge secret for decades: Her great love is not the man she was married to for all those years. And then comes the biggest surprise of all: Just when she thought she could never love again, Jennifer finds herself caught up in the greatest flight of exhilaration she's ever known. But just as unexpectedly, she learns that this new love comes with an unbearable cost. Jennifer doesn't think she can survive the pain-but the letters she's been reading make her think that love may help her find a way.

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Laced with mystery, Sam's Letters To Jennifer combines two unforgettable love stories in a novel that's absolutely impossible to put down.

Customer Reviews:

Sappy story.......2007-09-28

I read Suzanne's Diary to Nicholas in one sitting and enjoyed it. I hadn't read any other book that used that sort of style (diary interspersed with present day happenings). It was a nice change from reading 'regular' stories or ones written solely as a diary or series of emails, letters, etc. It was a sad, bittersweet story. But I liked it.

In Sam's Letters to Jennifer (the gender-ambiguous name is intentional), I thought I would find a similar type story, which I did but I didn't really like it. It reminded me too much of Nicholas Sparks (who is a much better author than this) and at the same time the always-tragedy-stricken characters in the Lurlene McDaniel stories I read as a teen. It's still a sweet story. I did enjoy reading Sam's letters and wished there were more of those thrown in. But the book was very short and rushed feeling. Patterson could've bulked it up without too much effort and would've had a better book as a result. Instead we're left with the sappy story of Jennifer, who has lost her husband, baby, and now her beloved grandmother has suffered a stroke. There is way too much tragedy going on in her life;- it almost doesn't feel realistic- does anyone really have such bad luck?

Overall a fast-paced read good for a boring afternoon but I'd recommend checking it out from the library before paying anything for this mediocre story. After reading this book and a couple other pretty blah Patterson books, I'm not that interested anymore. Too bad- there were a lot of things I liked about his stories- the suspense, quick pace, intrigue, romance- but there's becoming too much that I can't stand (i.e. predictable, mediocre writing).

Fears for Patterson's Tears.......2007-07-30

I and a number of other authors have written tear-jerking-cry until-there-are-no-more-tears-left, types of novels just like this one and couldn't get it passed the editorial assistant's assistant, let alone an agent.

First let me say this, I thoroughly agree with reviewer (publishers weekly?) who said it did not translate well to audio.
Although Jane Alexander was exceptional, for the first time I found Anne Heche to be weepy and droll with a tear in every single word making it even more tedious.

As for the novel itself, could he get anymore death, dying and near death in one 272 page novel? And what's with eighty-three chapters in that length? That's like 3.2 pages per. Editors I know would look at me like I grew two heads. (but then I am NOT James Patterson).

In a nutshell its girl lost husband, girl losing/lost grandmother who wrote a series of letters to her telling her about a secret indiscretion

(I liked that part the best), girl finds new man, but the new man is dying. New man lives? Dies? I'll let you read it for yourself. Hate to give away a plot no matter how succinct it is.
The story is not bad if you want to spend your Sunday afternoon sucking up tissue fibers or re-applying your makeup for the forty-fifth time.

A few readers and writers I know agree that if this book had been written by a woman it would never have gotten the review and kudos it did. ALA Bridges of Madison county.

Maybe its because I can't get passed ALEX CROSS that I don't see this as a Patterson genre, but it seemed to work for most of his following, but I'm afraid, this time it wasn't for me and I like his novels.

Great story.......2007-07-16

I picked up a copy of Women's Day (or some magazine like that) a couple of years ago with an excerpt from this book. After I read it, I couldn't wait to get the book! I was not disapointed. I was surprised though, it's not every day that you pick up a great romance novel written by a man (and a man who is a very popular thriller author to boot)
Anyone who enjoys a great romance novel, will definately enjoy this one!

I truly enjoyable book!.......2007-07-12

I first read James Patterson with his book Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas and just LOVED that book (shedding tears and all)! I recently picked up Sam's Letters on a clearance table at a book store...don't know HOW I missed it when if first came out! Both of these books are written somewhat similarly (the letter, diary style) and are really enjoyable to read. I found myself not being able to wait until Jennifer read the next letter from Sam to see what it entailed! I've not read any other JP books; none of the titles, covers, etc. have caught my eye. I suppose I'll check the reviews and see if I can pick up another one that equals these two!

Enjoyable and addicting.......2007-07-05

Once I read more than the first three chapters I was hooked. I didn't pick up on the whole "Michigan U" thing, someone else wrote in a past review. I didn't know of all the different colleges of Michigan, partly because I'm a University of Virginia fan. Anyway, the CPR given to the cat was a bit far fetched to a point. Although, CPR can be preformed on animals it is highly unlikely that anybody could resuscitate a cat that has electrocuted itself. You would need to use an AED to restart it's heart, at least for a human. I am making an assumption here, I don't know that veterinarians even preform that procedure on animals. Anyway, this book was a fairly good read, I enjoyed it and I ordered another book by James Patterson. We'll see how that goes, it could be just a rarity that I picked up one of his better novels. Especially since most of them seem to be title with some sort of hokie nursery rhyme.

Lucille Clifton: Her Life and Letters (Women Writers of Color)

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Lucille Clifton: Her Life and Letters (Women Writers of Color)
Mary Jane Lupton
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0275984699

Book Description

Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York, in 1936. Today, she is one of the most important and revered African American poets, writers, and educators in the nation. In addition to several works of poetry, she has written more than 15 children's books. Her work has been nominated for three Pulitzer Prizes and two National Book Awards, one of which she won for Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 in 2000. In 1999, she was appointed and remains a Chancellor of the American Academy of Poets, one of the most prestigious honors in American letters. Among her best known works is the poem "miss rosie," anthologized many times over and a standard part of high school curriculums. She has won an Emmy award, a Lannan Literary Award, two fellowships from the National Endowmant for the the Arts, and many other prestigious awards. Writing and composing with honesty and humanism, Clifton is known for her themes of the body, family, community, politics, womanhood, and the spirit. While much of her work deals with the African American experience, she does not limit herself to that perspective, addressing topics common to all women, to all people. This biography covers Clifton's life and work, addressing themes that run throughout her writing as well as the personal obstacles she faced and overcame, including her own faultering health. This timely and important biography will give readers a glimpse into the life of one of America's most important, influential, and enduring writers.

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Life-Styles of the Rich and Paranoid
A subtle suspense book that is absolutely terrific

Dead Letter
Jane Waterhouse
Manufacturer: Putnam Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0399144366

Amazon.com

There's no record of Jane Waterhouse ever writing a romance novel, but she certainly knows enough about the subject to pull it off. In Dead Letter, true crime writer Garner Quinn tells us about the last time she saw the strange and possibly dangerous sculptor Dane Blackmoor a year ago: "If I closed my eyes and held my breath, I could still remember the slow, soft progression of his mouth along the underside of my jaw, upward to my ear, how he'd whispered his parting shots in a hoarse, raspy voice."

In fact, what makes Waterhouse's books about Quinn so much fun to read is that neither the author nor her main character seem to know when to quit. You'd think that after being subjected to so much terror and personal humiliation in Graven Images and Shadow Walk, Quinn would listen to all those people who constantly urge her to (1) rethink her dangerous line of work, wherein every new book proposal turns into a death-defying situation and (2) give up on Blackmoor, who dumped her in her first outing. But, no--Dead Letter begins with Garner desperately scanning the mail in her New Jersey coastal home for word from Blackmoor and finding instead the first of a series of nasty threats from an obsessed fan. Things get so dangerous that a top security expert named Reed Corbin is called in, and for a while it appears that this fascinating hunk will solve both of Quinn's problems. The wily Waterhouse, however, has other surprising and satisfying solutions up her well-knit sleeve. --Dick Adler

Book Description

Fame and fortune are part of life as a bestselling author, but you can have too much of a good thing. The "irrepressible, hard to resist" (San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle) Garner Quinn returns in a new thriller, where her life in the public eye puts her directly in harm's way. Jane Waterhouse has been called "first-rate" (Chicago Tribune), "a bona fide talent"(Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel) who weaves a tale with such "breathtaking velocity" (Kirkus Reviews) "readers won't be able to turn the pages fast enough" (Publishers Weekly). True-crime writer Garner Quinn is getting letters from an obsessed fan. They arrive by the sackful in the daily mail, addressed to her remote, unlisted Jersey-shore estate, where she lives with her daughter and their elderly housekeeper--three women, alone. The fan has read all of her books; he's taped every one of her television appearances; and, what's worst, he seems to know her every move. In over her head, Garner hires Corbin, Inc., a prestigious security firm whose client list includes everyone from movie stars to government leaders. Reed Corbin, the firm's dynamic founder, takes a personal interest in the case--and in Garner. It's been a long time since she's felt this safe and cared for. But her chance for happiness is cut short when Corbin--the so-called security expert--is killed by a letter bomb. Garner immediately goes on the offensive, embarking on a quest for the truth that takes her from the Garden State to the City of Light. As the terror widens, she is drawn back to home shores, where she struggles to learn whether the threats are personal, or more far-reaching than she could ever have imagined. Filled with the edge-of-your-seat suspense that has won her so many fans, Dead Letter is a stunner from Jane Waterhouse.

Customer Reviews:

Life-Styles of the Rich and Paranoid.......2003-02-21

Garner Quinn, true crime writer, is a wonderful neurotic. Her background includes a dead alcoholic mother; rich, neglectful and dead father who had been a successful attorney and sued her over her first book; a Jamaican housekeeper who raised her; a teenaged daughter; an attorney ex-husband; and the Jamaican housekeeper's jealous daughter. There is also the ex-lover, who might have been her mother's ex-lover, who abandoned her.

Then Quinn develops a stalker. It begins with one creepy letter and escalates from there. She hires a high priced security firm to keep her little family safe. But it's not that easy, as circumstances drag in Dane Blackmoor, her expatriated ex-lover.

The really developed relationships in this book though are between Quinn, her daughter, her housekeeper and her housekeeper's daughter. Garner Quinn's life is not just threatened, it's badly in need of being shaken up and set right. Maybe this is the book to do it.

A subtle suspense book that is absolutely terrific.......1998-11-14

Garner Quinn has taken a hiatus from her famous career as a true crime writer. However, this is one time in which out of sight does not mean out of mind as the public still endows her with much acclaim. However, one of her fans is making her life a living hell by sending her letters, breaking into her car and leaving threatening notes. Garner takes the threats very seriously and hires Corbin, Inc, a security firm to the rich and famous, to safeguard her. Reed Corbin sets up a trap to capture Garner's nemesis even as he makes sure his client knows that he is very attracted to her. She reciprocates his feelings even though he is not Dane Blakemore.

When the stalker is apprehended, Garner concludes that Dane is never returning from Europe to her and is prepared to pursue a relationship with Reed. However, tragedy strikes, causing Garner to flee to the arms of Dane in Paris. However, Garner is called home because some unknown has posted bond for the stalker. The stalker is killed by the security agent but for Garner the terrot has only just begun.

Jane Waterhouse can always be counted on to give her readers the unexpected and her third Quinn novel is no exception. DEAD LETTER is a roller coaster ride of thrills, chills, and unrelenting suspense. There are so many twists and turns coupled with unexpected but believable surprises that the reader will be unable to put the book down until the last page has been turned. Anyone who has tasted a Quinn book will want to read the other two stories as well as future books because they will become addicted to the series.

Amazon.com

Africa may not always have been in Jane Goodall's blood, but animals were there right from the start: the list of recipients in what one hopes is only the first volume of her letters includes Dido the dog and Pickles the cat. And this is no flight of editorial fantasy. Goodall always accorded these members of her "darlingest family" their proper place alongside such correspondents as her mother, her father, her best friend, and her mentor, Louis Leakey (a.k.a. FFF, Foster Fairy Father). Africa in My Blood opens with 7-year-old Valerie Jane's encounters with various canines (real and porcelain) as well as signs of incipient naturalism--she has found "a ded rook he died of cold" and is caretaking a "catepiler." In the same communiqué, she also notes that her toy chimp has a new dress. Goodall would later prefer her primates au naturel but would continue to balance her urge for living taxonomy with love and empathy.

Culled from more than 16,000 letters, this collection will inspire Goodall adepts and those coming upon her for the first time. Her "autobiography in letters" restores this icon to full, even frivolous, humanity. It also recalls a lost era of inspired amateurism. When she went off to Nairobi at 23 in the spring of 1957, Goodall had no formal scientific training. Yet within weeks she had met Leakey and was soon working with him, not to mention rebuffing his advances, though she assures her mother that "he's much too fond of me for any monkey business."

Meanwhile, they had already discussed monkey business of a higher sort. "There is the vaguest possible chance that little me," Goodall wrote, "may have the chance to go right out into the wilds of the Northern Frontier for two or 3 months to study a strange tribe of chimpanzees who may be a new species, or sub-species. That is too heavenly to even think about." By the summer of 1960, Goodall was installed at the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve (which she soon termed Chimpland). And over the next year, she made four key discoveries, if not more, and was proving herself the zoological equal of such masters as George Schaller, having documented her subjects eating meat as well as using tools with ease.

Africa in My Blood reminds us that Goodall was once a controversial rather than hallowed figure, her methodology viewed with suspicion and condescension. And as many of us happily vegetate in front of televised slices of animal life, her awareness of her privileged position puts things in perspective. In early 1961, Goodall recounts a complex ritual and then asks her family: "Can you begin to imagine how I felt? The only human ever to have witnessed such a display, in all its primitive, fantastic wonder?"

Because Goodall has written so elegantly and incisively on chimpanzee behavior in, for instance, In the Shadow of Man and Through a Window, some readers might initially be tempted to gloss over her descriptions of such animals as the venerable David Greybeard and expert towel thief William and concentrate on her own persona--teasing, hyper-enthusiastic, and absolutely determined. When her project is threatened in 1963, she implores FFF: "You would fall head over heels in love with all my darlings--never, never think that I will let anything happen to them through what I am doing. I KNOW it is right. I KNOW that I can work the Reserve the way it must. I KNOW that I shall come back here time and time again until the problems that remain are hardly worth mentioning." Africa in My Blood makes it clear that, as Jane Goodall has long stressed, human and ape cannot be separated. --Kerry Fried

Book Description

AFRICA IN MY BLOOD is an extraordinary self-portrait, in letters and commentary, of Jane Goodall's early years, from childhood to the landmark publication of IN THE SHADOW OF MAN. It reveals this remarkable woman more vividly and clearly than anything that has been published before, by her or about her. We see Goodall grow from a schoolgirl into the promising young candidate whom the legendary Louis Leakey sent to a wildlife preserve on the shores of Lake Tanganyika to undertake a revolutionary study of chimpanzees. At Gombe we see her immerse herself in the lives of wild animals as no one had done before. AFRICA IN MY BLOOD is a dramatic, moving, funny, and important book that tells the story of how an English girl who loved animals became one of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews:

Sit by the Firelight in Africa at Midnight with Jane Goodall.......2000-12-31

The letters in this collection date from Ms. Goodall's youth through 1966, when her stature as a scientist was well established based on her pioneering research in Africa.

Books of letters are normally associated with great female authors of novels, such as Virginia Woolf. In those wonderful volumes, beautiful style and playful use of words adds joy to one's appreciation of the literary works themselves.

So, I did not know what to expect from a book of Jane Goodall's letters. What I found was a most pleasant surprise. The letters provide a deep perspective into the personality of Ms. Goodall and how that contributed to the development of the research methods she used. I found the letters fascinating and very rewarding, despite the fact that they are the opposite of high literary style.

If you are like me, you may primarily know Jane Goodall from her National Geographic television specials. Those were very accessible and enjoyable. But I did not know the background concerning how her pioneering research with chimpanzees was initiated and developed. This book wonderfully filled in that background. Also, I did not know how an attractive young Englishwoman came to become a field scientist in Africa in the first place. Also, the shows made it all seem rather natural and easy.

First, you will come away impressed with what a devoted correspondent she was. Over 16,000 letters were found by the editor to draw from. Now, how many letters have you written in your life? Also, these are mostly long, newsy letters to family, friends, and professional colleagues. If she had been a book reviewer, no one would have believed her production. Remember that she had no computer to help her draft the letters. In fact, she had the balkiest manual typewriters imaginable.

What was even more remarkable to me was that so many of her early letters had been saved. How many letters have you saved from people under the age of 15? That these letters are available is quite a testimony to her relationships with these people, and the impact of her personality.

Then, I did not know that she was a secretarial school graduate when she went to Africa. A few jobs quickly convinced her that she was not cut out for indoor work. She was eventually accepted into a Ph.D. program without ever having attended college! In fact, she had done most of her breakthrough field work before her Ph.D. was even granted. So much for formal education as a way to create new scholarly methods.

Ms. Goodall has a wonderful love of humans and animals that makes no significant distinction between them. I was overwhelmed to read her descriptions of her pets and the chimpanzees and baboons she studied. It is remarkable to read page after page as she gossips with people about the animals by name in more detail and with more sympathy than in much of what she writes about people who were not close to her. This perspective is a fairly unique one, and led to her finding ways to relate to the animals throughout her early years.

There is great humor throughout the letters. Her many descriptions of men becoming interested in her and how she handled them are echoed in her descriptions of the female chimpanzees eluded the hovering males. Humor and laughter came easily to her. You will laugh too at the descriptions of the chimpanzees tickling each other.

You will come away with a great respect for what she accomplished. The difficulties she overcame were incredible, and the work that she put into her research is beyond imagining. She mostly wrote these letters around midnight, after working from 6:30 in the morning . . . often in the driving rain. This was a 7 day a week effort for her. Frustrations were everwhere. Great sequences would occur, but where no one could photograph them. Or the exposures were set wrong on the camera, and the whole roll of film produced nothing. And the camera problems were just the least of it . . . although they were the most maddening to Ms. Goodall. Malaria, shingles, and mysterious diseases affected her and the others she worked with. But her commitment remained strong.

Dale Peterson has done a fine job of selecting the letters and summarizing them at the beginning of each section. My only complaint about the editing was that more footnotes would have been helpful. I was regularly lost in trying to understand who some of the people were whom Ms. Goodall refers to.

I suggest that you give this book to a young person who loves animals. Perhaps something will "click" that will allow that person to see that she or he can live a life devoted to inquiry and closeness with animals.

Follow your instincts!

A New Jane Goodall.......2000-04-18

For those of us who may think we know Jane Goodall as theheroine of National Geographic specials, the champion of primateintelligence and animal rights, one of the great scientists of thetwentieth century, Africa in My Blood comes as a revelation. Here is the young girl and woman discovering life for the first time, having a crush on the local curate, writing to her best friend Sally and her "Darling Family," traveling by slow boat to Africa, and then launching the career that we have never seen through such fresh eyes. Most astonishing of all, it turns out that Jane Goodall is a splendid writer of letters, which are full of comic anecdotes and finely-observed details, capturing in vivid prose the immediate events of her life and much wonderful material not included in her other books. Dale Peterson has done a superb job of editing, organizing, and introducing this monumental collection, showing Goodall as both private and professional woman, in both intimate portrait and dazzling display of her gifts as a writer. One can only hope that a second volume is on its way soon. END

A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned

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Well-intentioned but not sufficiently informed
Awakenings
A must-read about Tompkins' journey through life & academe

A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned
Jane Tompkins
Manufacturer: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0201327996

Customer Reviews:

Well-intentioned but not sufficiently informed.......2005-12-19

Jane Tompkins had an epiphany about teaching late in her academic career: teaching involves relationships, and teachers should think about how students are making sense of the material. At elite colleges, this insight is depressingly rare, and when Tompkins first articulated it in an article called "Me and My Shadow," it made significant waves in the academy. "A Life in School" represents Tompkins review of her own schooling and her early teaching in light of this new understanding. Part of this book may surprise people who haven't yet figured out that schools should not be structured primarily by competition and shame; it's unusual to see such a prominent scholar arguing that classrooms should treat students humanely. But what were discoveries for Tompkins in the 90s have been standard practice for many teachers since the 1960s (and for some in the 1930s). I'd recommend Nancie Atwell's "In the Middle" or Vivian Gussey Paley's "The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter" to those interested in teaching narratives that push beneath the surface. Although "Women's Ways of Knowing" focuses on girls' education, it also articulates in universally helpful ways many of the principles Tompkins is trying to develop. Jane Tompkins' publicity for good teaching has been immensely helpful, but there's a whole library of books published by Heinemann that can teach you more about building effective, caring classrooms.

Awakenings.......1997-11-03

As a new member of the profession, Tompkins book enlightened me as to the reason we have paralysis in higher education - its not that the paralysis is required, but its a feature of those of who are a part of it. As I read about Tompkins discoveries, something as simple as recognizing that a teacher needs to 'read the room' and tailor learning to the mood, convinced me that I am doing something right. But the disturbing part to discover is that while Tompkins has awakened herself to new approaches to teaching, her colleagues are still largely unaware. her presentation of her childhood - and the final connection to how this affects her teaching was dead-on.

A must-read about Tompkins' journey through life & academe.......1997-01-19

I enjoy reading books by women about women as they perceive their journey through academe. This is an especially good piece of work. Tompkins is an English professor at Duke. The book is autobiographical and profoundly evocative. It is an intense interpretation of the innertwinings of her personal and professional life. Tompkins discusses her life--from elementary school, through her doctoral program at Yale, through her life as a nontenured and then tenured faculty member--and, in the process, discusses issues that are important to so many of us in the Academy. She writes wonderfully about teaching, learning, and working at a research university. This is a book that will make you laugh, cry, and shake your head because of the way that she is so thoroughly introspective and incisive. Here's just a sample: "Peacable kingdoms aren't born; they are made. And that is why it seems to me that the university, like other places of employment, needs to become aware of itself as a social organism. This would mean that the leadership would become self-conscious about the nature of human interaction on the campus, finding a way to involve everybody--undergraduates, secretaries, janitorial staff, administrators, professors at all ranks, part-time faculty, graduate students, and visiting scholars. It would mean devoting time and effort to building good relationships. Right now, the culture of the research university militates agains the quality of life because such concerns are regarded as peripheral to the university's main business. They're perceived as unintellectual, more or less on the level of housekeeping.... But if research universities like the one I work at are going to become places where people like to come to work in the morning, where the employees have a stake and feel they belong, then they will have to model something besides the ideal of individual excellence--the Olympic polevaulter making it over the bar. By modeling the way that they do business, they'll need to model our dependence on one another, our need for mutual respect and support, acceptance, and encouragement. If the places that young people go to be educated don't embody the ideals of community, cooperation, and harmony, then what young people will learn will be the behavior these institutions do exemplify: competition, hierarchy, busyness, and isolation." Her observations about undergraduate education and teaching, as well as the description of her personal jouney as a teacher, are first-rate. The chapters entitled, "Ash Wednesday" and "The Cloister and the Heart," are among the best--if not the best--in the book. For example, in the "Cloister" chapter, she writes: "The university has come to resemble an assembly line, a mode of production that it professes to disdain. Each professor gets to turn one little screw--his specialty--and the student comes to him to get that screw turned. Then on to the next. The integrating function is left entirely to the student.... It would be more helpful to students if, as a starting point, universities conceived education less as training for a career than as the introduction to a life." This is a must-read for faculty and administrators. Enjoy! Frank Fear, Michigan State University

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