Homeless Mothers: Book review and topic discussion
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Homeless Mothers: Face to Face with Women and Poverty by Deborah R. Connolly (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 2000) is an ethnography based on participant observation and extensive interviews and written for the general public. Its main subjects are homeless mothers and their...
"Youth", J. M. Coetze - the main character in the book
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Youth' relates to a young man who has left South Africa after having finished his studies to live in London. According to him, he can reveal himself as a poet, as an artist, he can only get rid of his bleak appearance by leaving his native country. He expects a lot from London where his...
"Surfacing", Margaret Atwood (1972)
Book review - 8 pages - Literature
Atwood's contribution to the Canadian Literature is regarded as one of the most important of the past century. As an author, a poet and also a critic, she has distinguished herself by her literary eclecticism and her political and feminist involvement. She is also among the most-honoured...
"High Stained Glass, Philip Larkin (1974) - themes and poetic style of Larkin
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Larkin's anthology, 'High Windows', shows some recurrent themes, like life and death, aging, youth and sexuality, religion and socialising, that run through the different poems, linking and contrasting them. The presence of symbols is quite significant and can be seen as a common...
Detailed Study of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Jane Eyre is an orphan who has been sent to Gateshead, her uncle's house, early. Her uncle has died and her aunt Mrs. Reed hates her. She always punishes Jane Eyre even if it were her own children who had made a mistake. For example, one day, Jane was shut up in the 'red-room' (that...
A Study on Willa CATHER, O Pioneers!
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Willa Cather was an American novelist who grew up in Nebraska, where her most famous novel "O Pioneers!? is set. It is her second novel, and she was forty when it was published in 1913. Actually, this fictional novel is in keeping with its author's life insofar as the heroine has similarities...
The Home and the World - Rabindranath Tagore
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Rabindranath Tagore was born on the 6 of may 1861 in Calcutta and died on the 7 of august 1941, in the same town. He was a versatile artist, writing poetry, drama and novels, composing and also painting. He was also a huge philosopher in India during his time. He was also known as...
"The Witches of Salem", Arthur Miller (1953) - allusions to McCarthyism
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Arthur Miller, in 1953, wrote 'The Crucible' which recounts the puritan trials and alludes to McCarthyism, by the same process that had been used by George Orwell with his 'Animal Farm'; denouncing a political issue by writing a similar story to avoid censorship. Raymond Rouleau...
The things they carried: Time O'Brien
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
This book is, debatably, a memoir of the Vietnam War. By debatably, I mean to say that it is written in the form of a memoir, although the author denies that many of these events actually took place. This book includes the stories of Tim O'Brien and the soldiers that he knew in Vietnam during the...
The House on Mango Street
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I chose this book because my aunt recommended me reading it. Although I don't usually read books like this, because it was a book about coming of age, I thought it would be interesting to read. This book was somewhat like The Catcher in the Rye, but instead of taking place in New York, it...
Daisy Miller: Henry James
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
This book takes place in 1878 and centers around the idea of an extended trip throughout Europe, which was very popular among wealthy Americans at this time. This novel addresses the behavior of the young American girls who visit Europe and due to their new distance from home, become very...
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I chose to read the Picture of Dorian Gray because I was already semi familiar with the story and numerous friends recommended it to me. This famous novel takes place in nineteenth century England and revolves around the high society of that time and place. There is a supernatural aspect to this...
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
This book was originally recommended to me by freshman humanities teacher. When I read the book previously, it helped me to make sense of my own beliefs and I recently came to a point in my life where I felt that it was time to read it again. This is really a story of philosophy and religion. It...
Psychological analysis in the Heart of Darkness
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
Orphaned at the age of twelve, Conrad's writing reflects solidarity. In his most popular novel Heart of Darkness he states, “We live, as we dream- alone.” Common themes in his works are alienation, confusion, and doubt. He wrote not only about physical threats but also about inner...
Book review: A Darkness more than Night by Michael Connelly
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
Michael Connelly is 54 years old and is a well-known writer from Los Angeles. He has spent his life writing detective stories in which he mostly uses Harry Bosch as the main character. Connelly has won lots of awards during is career. Terry McCaleb is happy living with his family, when FBI...
David J. Francis, Uniting Africa: Building regional peace and security systems
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
“Africa today is faced with a stark choice, either unite or perish. ” So opens David J. Francis' intriguing study on the state of African nations in relation to one another. Frances spends a great deal of attention outlining the serious social and economic problems facing the African...
A special education, learning to teach a disabled student
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
A Special Education: One Family's Journey Through the Maze of Learning Disabilities is the author, Dana Buchman's explanation about how her family coped with having a child who suffered from severe learning and developmental disorders. It is a tremendously interesting look at the topic because...
Familial construction in Christopher Carrington's 'There's no place like home'
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
In Christopher Carrington's No Place Like Home, the author tackles the very difficult question of what comprises a family. The question posed, liking a thread throughout the book as it attempts to be answered, is what are the issues facing gay and lesbian parents as they choose to construct a...
A review of Things fall apart
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart brilliantly relates to the reader the story of one man's life and chronicles its disintegration. This man's name is Okonkwo; it is his journey and his trials that are followed, most significantly those in which he interacts with his family. From the beginning,...
The Martian chronicles: A review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
The plot description in the back of this book fascinated me. It is a philosophy or ideal from the mind of the author, which is really almost a palindrome. This is a science fiction book with the idea that there is life on other planets but that they are just as skeptical of our human existence as...
The Iceman cometh: Review
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
The Iceman Cometh is an American tragedy set amidst the desolation of a saloon crowded with the marginalized elements of society. While Eugene O'Neill, the playwright, may not have been the most talented author in his ability to pen the most realistic, eloquent, or beautiful dialogue, he was...
The house of the seven gables: A review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables is a story more akin to a moral fable than the gothic writing one might expect from a piece of nineteenth century horror. Set across two centuries, and varying between the present and past, Hawthorne captures the peculiar nature of the...
Ayn Rand's The fountainhead: A book review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I chose to read The Fountainhead based on a couple of recommendations. Written by Ayn Rand, it is an astounding piece of literary work that follows the life of a young architect, Howard Roark. The Fountainhead takes place in New York beginning in the mid-1920's and continues into the 1930's. In...
Ruth Rendell's The crocodile bird: A review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I came across this book at random when I needed something for a book check. After reading the first few pages I was hooked. The book seemed mysterious and provocative in its own slightly twisted way. This story takes place in a very small town in England in the nineteen eighties and early...
A review of The confessions
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
For this book club I spent a lot of time looking into all of the books on the list that I had never heard of. I read the summary of each of the books on the list and eventually settled on The Confessions by Saint Augustine. I chose this book because it seemed like the Catholic equivalent to...
Koren Zailckas' Smashed: Review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I had seen a recommendation for this book along with an interview of the author more than a year ago in a magazine. It had always looked interesting to me as I am interested in a career in addiction medicine, so when I recently saw it in a store I jumped to buy it. This is the memoir of a girl...
A review: On liberty and utilitarianism
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
John Stuart Mill's treatises on the nature of civil liberty and the political philosophy of utilitarianism are some of the most groundbreaking, and perpetually relevant, discourses on the subjects. His works stand as a testament to the ability for progressive, and at a given point in time...
Of mice and men: A review
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
I read this book because my peers read it. Peer pressure, right? I needed an honors book, it was short, and it was the first book my mom offered me when I told her that a classic would fill the requirement. It is a classic book, not sure what genre it falls under, but Wikipedia places it under...
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides: A review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
This novel covers the time period of three generations. It is a work of fiction but comes off as an autobiography. The narrator, is of the youngest generation, and grew up in Detroit but tells the story as an adult living in Austria. The narrator's parents also grew up in Detroit. The first...
Norman Mailer: The naked and the dead
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
The Naked and the Dead was Norman Mailer's debut novel detailing the lives of a group of American soldiers during World War II. Coming just three years after the conclusion of hostilities, this lengthy tome transported the country back into the horrors of war. The poetry in this first foray...
