— But you will be ready to say, what was your hope in doing this? — What did you look forward to? — To any thing, every thing — to time, chance, circumstances, slow effects, sudden bursts, perserverance and weariness ... Every possibility of good was before me, and the first of blessings secured ... — from Emma, by Jane Austen
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

March 22, 2017

Reading lives




Having recently worked my way through two not-all-that-engaging biographies of  people I was looking forward to knowing more about, I was reminded of how wonderful it is when the opposite happens ... those times when I've found myself reading, and loving,  a beautifully-told life of someone I didn't expect to find as interesting as I did.  That's even better, I think. :)


Noted under:

4 comments:

Karen K. said...

Catherine the Great was just wonderful, Massie did an amazing job of bringing her to life. I've also read the Dickens biography and loved it. Another great one is Becoming Queen Victoria by Kate Williams which backtracks to the Regency period with George IV and Princess Charlotte and explains the amazing circumstances which led to Victoria as the heir to the throne. It's really fascinating.

March 23, 2017 at 3:33 AM
JoAnn said...

Sorry about the recent disappointments. There is something extra special in the unexpected... I haven't had the experience in years, but remember being unable to tear myself away from Blake Bailey's biography of Richard Yates, A Tragic Honesty.

March 23, 2017 at 10:06 AM
Bellezza said...

I have been interested in Catherine the Great by Massie before. How I am fascinated by Russia's history! I just finished a book on Nero, which was fine, but not stellar.

Did you see Masterpiece is beginning a series on the Bronte sisters? It airs Sunday night, and I suspect we may like it.

March 24, 2017 at 9:34 PM
JaneGS said...

I thought Claire Tomalin's bio of Dickens to be the best I've read. I really enjoy bios, but it has to be the right subject and right biographer to click.

March 28, 2017 at 3:29 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Thank you for visiting!

My photo
Boston, MA

Card Catalog

#6barsets #emma200th #maisie #PalliserParty #Woolfalong A.A. Milne Agatha Christie Alexander McCall Smith Allison Pearson Amy Lowell Angela Thirkell Ann Bridge Anne Perry Anthony Trollope Anticipation Armchair Travels Art Audiobooks Barbara Pym Biography Bloomsbury Bookish things Boston British Library Crime Classics Cambridge Cathleen Schine Charles Dickens Coffee-table books Cookbooks D.E. Stevenson Deborah Crombie Donna Leon Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy Whipple E.H. Young E.M. Forster Edith Wharton Elinor Lipman Elizabeth Gaskell Elizabeth Jenkins Elizabeth Taylor Elizabeth von Arnim Emily Dickinson Ernest Hemingway Eudora Welty Fiction Films Food from Books Food Writing Found on a Blog George Eliot Georgette Heyer Helen Ashton Henry James History Homes and Haunts Ideas Imogen Robertson Isabella Stewart Gardner Jacqueline Winspear Jane Austen Joanna Trollope Julia Child Language Laurie Colwin Letters Library Books Literature Louise Andrews Kent Louise Penny M.F.K. Fisher Madame Bovary Madame de Sévigné Madame de Staël Margaret Kennedy Margery Sharp Martha Grimes Mary Shelley Memoirs Miss Read My Year with Edith Mysteries Nathaniel Hawthorne Nonfiction Nook Only Connect P.D. James Paris in July Persephones Plays Poetry Pride and Prejudice 200 Queen Victoria R.I.P. Reading England 2015 Ruth Rendell Sarah Orne Jewett Short Stories Switzerland Sylvia Beach Team Middlemarch The 1924 Club The Brontës the Carlyles The Classics Club Thomas Hardy Virago Virginia Woolf Washington Irving Willa Cather William Maxwell Winifred Peck Winifred Watson