classic Archives

Dr. Thorne

Matters of the Heart Author: Anthony Trollope When you think of Anothony Trollope, you think of a good old drawing room drama. Ladies in pluming skirts, hiding behand fans, talking scandal as piano forte plays delicately in the background and the butler shuffles around, taking in all that aristocratic gossip. And what makes a better scandal than rejecting the status quo and marrying for love, not money! Frank Gresham will be the heir to the Greshamsbury estate – a foundering money pit effectively ruined by Frank’s well-meaning father and extravagant mother. To save the estate, Frank HAS to marry money. The [...]

Frances Carden2023-11-04T09:50:39-07:00November 4th, 2023|Tags: book review, classic, read, reading|

Swiss Family Robinson, The

A Family Adventure Classic Author: Johann David Wyss The Swiss Family Robinson begins with shipwreck and ends with the establishment of a new kingdom – a reverse Lord of the Flies where a hapless family not only survives by wit and grit, but thrives on a delightful desert island. The Robinson’s are a large family, immigrating from their beloved Switzerland and caught mid-way by the peril of a storm. The sailors abandon the family, and the father, mother, and four boys ride out the storm on the stranded, sinking ship, only to arrive safely at a seemingly uninhabited island. From here, [...]

Frances Carden2023-10-22T10:45:37-07:00October 22nd, 2023|Tags: adventure, book review, children's fiction, classic, fiction, read, reading|

In Cold Blood

A Surprisingly Banal Representation of Murder Author: Truman Capote A sleepy Kansas town, where families safely leave their doors unlocked. Where everyone knows everyone else in town. A family – father, mother, two children, slaughtered in the night. Shot, point blank. Tied up. Robbed. All for $40.00. Truman Capote took an infamous, seemingly inexplicable crime and ushered in narrative non-fiction and the popularity of true crime books with In Cold Blood, which has since become a classic. I remember as a child watching the first movie based on this book. I recall marveling at the complexity of emotion, the way that [...]

Frances Carden2023-05-02T18:43:51-07:00May 2nd, 2023|Tags: book review, classic, horror, in cold blood, read, reading, true crime, truman capote|