Archive for the ‘Reading level: Sophisticated reader’ Category
Friday, May 19th, 2006
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| Author: | Jane Austen |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | fiction, historical |
| Year of publication: | 1813 |
It is amazing how a book that was written nearly two centuries ago can ring so true to this day.
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It's an age-old story, obviously. A teenage girl is mortified by her family and lack of money and feels that they adversely affect her romantic prospects.
And, the young man she favors agrees.
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Pride and Prejudice |
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Saturday, April 1st, 2006
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| Author: | John Galsworthy |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | fiction, historical |
| Year of publication: | 1918 |
Makes the case for either marriage for love or marriage for convenience, but that it's necessary to decide up front which it's going to be. Still relevant after all these years.
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Forsyte Saga |
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Saturday, April 1st, 2006
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| Author: | Lauren Belfer |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | fiction, historical |
| Year of publication: | 1999 |
Kind of a Handmaid's Tale (without the explicit sex) that takes place in Buffalo, NY at the dawn of the 20th century.
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: City of Light |
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Dickensian, Female protagonist, Fiction, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Saturday, April 1st, 2006
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| Author: | John Irving |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | fiction, historical |
| Year of publication: | 1999 |
Complex, heavily plotted, John Irving disquisition on how official rules/laws and unwritten norms are unequally enforced based on gender, social status, and other factors. In other words, it's about the politics and the realities of Making Hard Choices. |
Unlike Jane Eyre and David Copperfield, orphans in The Cider House Rules are routinely well cared for and frequently give in to temptation (for good causes, of course). Irving bravely compares himself to these two, and to Dickens, and bravely proclaims the utility and necessity of lying (aka creation of fiction) in the face of unfair rules.
Once you finish reading The Cider House Rules, you will feel compelled to (re)read David Copperfield and Jane Eyre.
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Cider House Rules, The |
Posted in Conceptual: for grown ups, Culture, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Monday, March 13th, 2006
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| Author: | Richard Dawkins |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | Non-fiction: Science |
| Year of publication: | 1990 |
Richard Dawkins' take-no-prisoners-style riff on how evolution has made all of us. |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Selfish Gene, The |
Tags:book review, evolution, Gifted, history of science, non-fiction, religion, Science
Posted in Animals, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Gifted, History, Reading level, Reading level: age 12 and up, Reading level: Sophisticated reader, Science | Comments Closed
Monday, March 13th, 2006
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| Author: | Anita Diamant |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
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| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
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| Genre: | fiction, historical |
| Year of publication: | 1997 |
Riff on life of biblical woman, Dinah |
A passage in the book of Genesis refers to Dinah, the only daughter of Joseph. Dinah's brothers "avenged" her by killing her husband and all his men.
Diamant's novel gives voice to Dinah, who is granted only this one passage in the Bible. In so doing, Diamant muses on the way the roles of women changed as Abraham's descendants' allegiance to the single God, El, became stronger.
Contrasts in an interesting way with The King Must Die, which also describes a transition from a culture where women were acknowledged to possess some divinity to one in which male deities were ascendent.
-- Emily Berk |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Red Tent, The |
Posted in Conceptual: for grown ups, Female protagonist, Fiction, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
