First off, if there is more than one BBC version of Jane Eyre out there, I do not know what it is. Secondly, I would advise both reading the book and watching the BBC series. Each is wonderful.

The BBC seems to have a flair not just for drama, but for accuracy in adaptation. Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books of all time, and Jane Eyre by the BBC matches up with the book most harmoniously.

First, the cast. The casting is excellent. I have seen versions, which I deigned to ignore, where they tried to make Jane more attractive because it would be more appealing or they tried to make Mr. Rochester dashing and handsome, or less mercurial and sardonic. The secondary characters typically got the shaft.

In this case, everyone seemed to be precisely who they ought to be, from Jane and Rochester, to St. John, and the (vile, evil) Aunt Reed. It did seem to me that both the time at Lowood and the time with St. John and his sisters was rather abridged, and a change was made as to how Jane came to be with them, but other than those rather small points everything was accurate to a delightful extreme.

As someone who appreciates accuracy, I was delighted. Rochester was perfect. He was, as described in the book, not the most attractive of men and Jane was also rather plain. I liked this because it has always been something that made me see the characters as being more “real” than they otherwise might have been.

Blanche Ingraham and Bertha were also well done, which is saying something because they are not the most detailed characters in the novel so I imagine the screenwriter and the person(s) in charge of casting had to put a great deal of thought into who would fill those roles and how they would convey the “essence” of the characters without adding unecessary dialogue or backstory to the film.

Of any book-to-film adaptation I have ever seen, this is the best. I give it a 10. I think Bronte would approve.

Tags: BBC, BBC movie of Jane Eyre, BBC series Jane Eyre, Bronte Sisters, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester

Daphne du Maurier’s best known novel is Rebecca, which is often assigned reading for high school students and loved more by the girls than the boys. However, du Maurier also wrote several other works – one of which is My Cousin Rachel. I will admit that I had the exact same problem with My Cousin Rachel that I had with Rebecca. The hook is not a hook, it’s a cryptic and seemingly nonsensical introduction with no relevance to the reader until you finish the book.

Once I finished My Cousin Rachel, the introduction was relevant and gripping. But throughout the book I kept thinking back to the introduction and saying to myself, “That was rather pointless and irrelevant.”

Because of the non-hooking hook, I found it hard to get into the novel. Once I got to chapter three or four, though, it took off and I read it about as quickly as I ever read anything. For those of us who liked Rebecca it may be disappointing to find that this book does not offer the bittersweet happy ending that Rebecca offers. Furthermore, we know all the character’s names and the main character is male, not female so the perspective is a little different. I have to admit I expected the story to come from a woman’s point of view because my only impression of Du Maurier was from Rebecca.

My Cousin Rachel is, however, similar to the well-known novel that I shall cease to name…and equally haunting. The characters have a few things in common as well. Both main characters are young, passionate, and somewhat bewildered by the world around them. Both of them are surrounded by a mystery that is palpable, but seems to have already been solved until they begin to question their own assumptions.

Philip Ashley is in his early twenties and finds himself suddenly alone in the world. His beloved elder cousin has left for warmer climes in order to maintain his health, but eighteen months in Italy see him suddenly and unexpectedly wed, then just as unexpectedly dead. (Yes, the rhyme was intentional.) Who does he marry? Their cousin, Rachel – a gentle woman who is a widow, a distant member of the family from a distant branch of the family tree. She may also be a murderess.

Philip recieves letters from his elder cousin from Italy, but as his supposed illness grips him and progresses each letter sounds more desperate, incoherent and paranoid. After a period of no communication, Philip recieved a letter that ends, “She has finally done for me, Rachel my torment.” Philip accordingly rushes to Italy only to find that his cousin has died three weeks before he arrived.

Philip returns to his home near Cornwall mourning only to find, three weeks later, that the mysterious Rachel has come to England. Philip is then left to determine her guilt or innocence and measure her actual manner and appearance against the spectre of Rachel he created in his mind after reading the letters of his uncle.

As a secondary plot point, Philip also needs to learn how to be a man so the story is part coming-of-age story. But the result of playing host to his Cousin Rachel could leave him shattered.

All in all, just as good as Rebecca and different enough to have me turning pages like a madwoman. Next time I get the chance, I’ll try another Du Maurier novel.

Tags: Cornwall, Daphne du Maurier, England, Italy, My Cousin Rachel, ocean, Philip Ashley, poison, Rachel, Rebecca, tumor

Ranger's Apprentice - The Ruins of Gorlan

If I had to find a simple phrase to describe The Ruins of Gorlan, it would probably be the same phrase that was used to describe Earth in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

Mostly Harmless.

The Ruins of Gorlan, the first book in the Ranger’s Apprentice series, introduces us to Will on his “Choosing Day”.  This is the day in which wards of the Baron like him select their profession, provided the Craftmasters who taught those professions would take them.

Will, who unlike his other wards friends does not fit into any of the stereotypes of the professions (and believe me, all his friends fit their chosed professions perfectly), is disappointed when he asks to go to Battleschool to become a knight, but the taskmaster rejects him.  Will has to wait until that evening to discover that Halt, the fiefdom’s mysterious ranger has asked the Baron to have Will as his apprentice.

Hesitant at first, Will eventually finds himself eager to train as a Ranger, and learn all their mysterious ways.  However, he didn’t expect Halt’s answer when he asked what Rangers do:  “What Rangers do, or more correctly, what Rangers’ apprentices do, is the housework”, Halt responds.

And so Will begins training with a sequence that would fit right in with a 1980′s action movie, complete with musical training montage.  There is Will carrying water from the river. There is Will splitting firewood. There is Will cleaning the pots. There is Will sweeping the floor.  There is Will learning to cook.  There is Will beating the rugs.

Mr. Miyagi would be so proud.

Will’s training is broken up occasionally –a feast day back at the castle, and an encounter with a wild boar — but for the most part that’s what takes bulk of the book’s 249 pages (in the U.S. paperback edition).  There is no sense of conflict until near the end, when Halt and Will attend a Ranger gathering and find that scouts have reported that evil creatures known as the Kalkara have crossed from other side of the mountains, and are thought to be targeting certain leaders from the kingdom for assassination for their evil lord Morgarath, an exiled former Baron in the Kingdom.

And so the short rising action begins, and leads to a climax that begins and ends in less than five pages.  To say I was disappointed in the quick resolution would be to say that the Pope is Catholic.

Looking back after I read the book, I realized it had been a swift read, which is never exactly a bad thing nor a given for me.  The vocabulary and grammar seemed a tad unusual to me, and I later found out that the books are from an Australian author, and that would probably explain why I found the grammar a bit more polished than I thought a Young Adult book would be.

However, I also found the book to be quite unremarkable.  I couldn’t find any glaring dislikes, just a very basic, vanilla plot.  At the close, I got the feeling that I had just read a long preamble or introduction.  And while that may not necessarily be a bad thing, I don’t think I’ll be rushing out to buy the sequels.

Tags: Flanagan, John Flanagan, Ranger's Apprentice, The Ranger's Apprentice, The Ruins of Gorlan

At long last, I have finally read The Jane Austen Book Club.

I have to admit, I’m still not completely certain whether I like the book or not, but I can safely say that I do like some of the characters from the book very much. The book tells the story of the six members of the Jane Austen Book Club, which is started by a woman named Jocelyn in order to let friends get together, read Austen, and discuss her works with each other. This is an idea that probably appeals to any Austen fan since only another Austen fan can truly appreciate what it is we are talking about when we mention our favorite books, or this and that character.

Of the six characters, my favorite was Bernadette, who seemed to repeat herself often and not really give a damn. She was perhaps of all the characters the most comfortable in her own skin.

Now, for you Austenites out there, this book may not be as much about Austen as you would like. It is written in such a way that Austen’s works play a role, but that the real story is almost a series of mini-biographies of each character. It explains why or how Austen is relevant to them, perhaps how they came to reading Austen, and in the end how reading Austen or being in the book club made a difference to them. That, I think, may be the point: the power of Austen to bring such difference and diverse people together with something in common. It’s something I noticed in my Jane Austen class this semester.

We all had different ideas about Austen, different backgrounds, different levels of expertise on Austen’s life and works, but we had the common factor of being interested in Austen and willing to say what we thought of her works,  or her life. It resulted in more comraderie than most classes I’ve ever been in.

Even the three sole guys in the class got carried away with it, though some still seemed to want to scratch their head and ask why anyone would read or write so many books about marriage.

Each character in this book has their own personality, their own troubles, their own past and conflicts. Yet they have Austen in common and their social connections through the book club in common. They interact with each other and get to know each other – and grow to accept the sole guy in the Club, Grigg.

Is it worth reading? I would say yes. Worth having in your library? Certainly. Worth poring over? Perhaps, but I can’t be sure how much meaning there is supposed to be behind any of it.

My one complaint is that the narration is inconsistent – not in that it changes point of view – and you never know who is telling the story, or whether it’s even someone in particular. It drove me sort of crazy in places. That’s an element that I think needs work because it wasn’t “consistent inconsistency”, it just seemed ill organized to me. I could be wrong, but that’s how it was for me.

I was also surprised by how the story just sort of ends, but then I considered it and I realized that Austen’s books seem to do that, too. You get to the end and you know there’s more to the story. There’s something even after the ‘happily ever after’ that we’ll never read about. So, I was satisfied.

I would recommend the book, but with the caution that it may not be what you expect and it may be a little hard to get into. I did enjoy the read, though. I’d be willing to re-read it after a little time has passed. It could do with more perusal.

Tags: Allegra, Austenite, Bernadette, book club, Corrine, Daniel, Emma, fiction, Grigg, Jane Austen, Jane Austen Fan Fiction, Jocelyn, Mansfield Park, Mysteries of Udolpho, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Prudie, reading, Sylvia

As you may have noticed, Iris Johansen is one of the authors that I seem to read more regularly. Once reason for this is the sheer amount of material that she has published, but it’s alsot that she is one of the few mystery/thriller authors that I can read without getting bored – though there are some elements that still make me a little critical.

Dark Summer offered a rather unique plot in my opinion, though it did seem to stray more into the realm of Fantasy than many writers in the same genre would like to go. Johansen, however, has been writing well enough long enough that she has no reason to shy away from the quirkier ideas that she may come up with and the execution is well done.

Devon Brady and Jude Marrock have few things in common. One point in common is that they both do rescue work with dogs – mostly to recover people after natural disasters. The second is that they are highly dedicated to their dogs not just as pets, but as friends, allies, and more important than most people. The third is that they each sense something in the other that sets them off balance.

Jude is thrown into Devon’s path when his rescue dog, Ned, is shot while they are exploring the wreckage of a previously explored site of destruction. Devon is one of the only veterinarians on site and she is charged with caring for Ned’s wound when Jude rushes in, concerned and angry over the incident.

What Devon is shocked by was that, once assured of Ned’s care, Jude would rush off in pursuit of the shooter leaving her stuck with Ned and the business of getting him out of the country without all the legal documents. What Jude didn’t count on was that Devon may just not be willing to put Ned back into the custody of such a feckless owner.

What Devon didn’t know was that Jude’s departure was to assure himself that an old enemy – Danner – wouldn’t have the change to track him down again. But it takes Jude more time than he planned to take down the man who shot Ned and by the time he gets back to the States he finds that Danner is planning to make a move on Devon, which will likely end not only in Ned’s death, but the death of Devon, her co-workers, her friends, and all of her animals. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Arizona, Carribean, Devanez, Devon Brady, dogs, german shepards, healing, John Logan, Jude Marrock, labradors, London, M16, Mystery, rescue dogs, rescue mission, retrievers, Sarah Logan, shi'i'go, thriller, veterinarians

As you steady readers know, I’ve been reading the Redwall series by Brian Jacques lately. The first two books Redwall and Mossflower weren’t completely new to me, but since then I’ve added Mattimeo, Mariel of Redwall, Salamandastron, Martin the Warrior, The Bellmaker, The Outcast of Redwall, The Pearls of Lutra, The Long Patrol, and Marlfox to my collection! So as you can imagine I have quite a bit of reading material on my hands and a good chunk of it is by Brian Jacques.

I have already reviewed the first three on that list and now I’ve made it through book four. One thing to note: I will be including some possible SPOILERS in this review because there’s only so much you can say without discussing the plot. So, if you don’t want to read the spoilers stop here. That being said, here’s what I think:

Mariel of Redwall was both the same and different from previous stories. To keep that statement from being redundant, I shall explain. This story was the same as the previous ones because the plot involved two elements that seem to be inherent to the series: invaders trying to take over Redwall Abbey, and Redwallers going out on an adventure. A third element which also seems consistent is that somehow, Martin the Warrior – one of the founders of the Abbey and it’s protector – somehow managed to aid each of these characters in some way. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: An Adventure of Redwall, Colonel Clary, Gabool the Wild, Gonff, Graypatch, Gullwhacker, Hon Rosie, Joseph the Bellmaker, Mariel of Redwall, Martin the Warrior, Martin's sword, mice, Oak Tom, pirates, rats, Redwall Abbey, Salamandastron, Storm Gullwhacker, Tarquin, Treerose

Well, our 40 Posts in 40 Days idea seems to have gotten off to a great start! Thanks to Gambit for making our 20th post. You put us at the halfway mark and that makes you awesome.
Now, I’m a little behind on reading because I had car trouble this weekend, but don’t let that worry you! I have some posts backed up already because I started my reading a week before we started this campaign. Stuff happens, life gets in the way of perfectly good reading time and I planned ahead.
The strange thing is that since I’ve been checking out library books, and recently purchased some books rather cheaply, I will be able to exceed the 40-Post quota by quite a margin because as it now stands I can’t fit in the number of unread titles!
Among my newest acquisitions are:
The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman V. Peale (pub. 1956)
Le Morte D’Arthur, vol I and vol II from Penguin Classics, by Sir Thomas Malory
Patriot Games, by Tom Clancy
…and library books on British history – a subject of considerable interest to me lately – as well as a couple of romance novels best quantified as “cheap, trashy, fiction.” The library card just may do me in since I keep finding books I want to read. I’ve got to start looking for Michener again.

So keep an eye out! If these don’t get reviewed in the next 20 days you can bet they’ll appear later on. Thanks for keeping up with us!

Also don’t forget to go by the Chronicles of the Necromancer site to check out the excerpt of the latest book, interviews and other goodies. It’s worth it. And if you haven’t read the first three books, check out their info from the main page. It’s a great series.
~GHP

The City of Ember

At the dawn of the 21st century, scientists built Ember far underground as the last refuge of humankind, where a select few would live sheltered and in peace for 200 years, before emerging to (hopefully) a new life.  The first mayor of Ember was given a box, which would open after 200 years containing instructions for the people of Ember to exit their temporary city. The box was to be passed down by each mayor to their successor, and so it was, for many years.  Until one mayor died in office, and the box was lost to time.  Eventually, after two hundred years, the box silently opened, hidden away in a closet.  Meanwhile, Ember was slowly breaking down, its only source of power frequently failing, its lights randomly going dark, and its food storage rooms going empty.

It’s in this setting that we meet 12 year olds Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow, on the day on which they will be assigned their careers. Lina becomes a messenger, charged with carrying messages verbally from one person to another; Doon works in pipeworks, patching up the pipes that carry Ember’s water.  He traded for that job only because it will let him be close to Ember’s failing generator, and he is certain that he can fix it if he can get to it.   He finally gets to sneak in to the generator, and is crestfallen with what he sees: no one seems to know how the generator actually works, only that it does something with the river that runs through Ember that makes it generate electricity. As the generator slowly breaks down, the best they can do is try and keep it from failing completely.

Lina got the job she wished for, since running was one of her favorite activities. What she didn’t count on was that carrying all those messages would also open up her eyes to the desperate situation in which Ember found itself.

When Lina finds the metal box, she realizes it may be the one way to save her city.  She tries to figure out what the instructions say, but there is one problem: Lina’s little sister Poppy has chewed up the paper to the point that only fragments are left.  Together with Doon, and with help from some friends, Lina tries to warn the authorities that the generator is dying, and they may have found a way for the city to survive.

The City of Ember is a rare Young Adult book in that it gets as much of its greatness from the depth of its characters as from the strength of its plot.  It does not depend on happy coincidences, or out-of-character decisions by its principal players.  It is definitely an electric opening chapter in the Book of Ember saga, and makes for a quick, satisfying read.

Until the cliffhanger ending, that is.  Now I have to go and get the next book in the series.

Readers know that one of the most reliable ways to find a specific book or version of the book is to know it’s ISBN number, which typically is found by looking at the barcode on the back of the book where the ISBN is listed – and typically included in the barcode itself. One thing I have had to ask myself, though, is what the heck is an ISBN anyway? And why do some books have ISBN, ISBN-10, or ISBN-13? What’s the difference?

Well, for any of you who share my curiosity or are simply bewildered, here I swoop in with heroic music (that only I hear in my head) to save the day and answer some questions.

• ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. It is a means of identification. ISBN’s are purchased, most often by publishing companies, and can be bought in groups.
• The difference between ISBN, ISBN-10, and ISBN-13 is pretty simple. ISBN and ISBN-10 are pretty much the same thing: a ten digit ISBN number. After Jan 1, 2007 ISBNs went to 13 digits long, which created the ISBN-13.
• ISBN-13 is not so complicated. I mainly changed to add a prefix number of either 978 or 979, followed by the regular ISBN-10.
• The format of an ISBN-10 is as follows
  • Group/Country Identifier: 0 or 1 are for English-speaking countries, 2 for French, 3 for German, 4 for Japanese, 5 for Russian and so on.
  • Publisher Identifier: there is a book that lists all the publisher identifiers, but it’s rather costly. There is a partial list somewhere online, but don’t ask me where. I just know it’s out there.
  • Title Identifier: Seriously, I have to explain that?
  • Check Digit: Check digits are calculated using all prior numbers in the ISBN. If you’ve ever seen an X at the end of an ISBN, it’s because the check digit falls somewhere between 1 and 10, but since 10 is actually two digits they use X – the roman numeral for 10. Thanks, Rome.
• The format of an ISBN is the same, except for a prefix of 978 or 979. Some books will list both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13. Older books will list simply an ISBN, which is by default an ISBN-10.

An ISBN is pretty useful to the adventurous reader, as some harder-to-find books are more easily identified by ISBN that title or author name. It’s also handy to have with you if you’re having trouble finding a book at the bookstore because an ISBN is unique to its book. If you go back to some of my more recent posts, you’ll note I started listing ISBNs for the rollover of a bookcover. That way, you can look up the exact book I have read!

Questions? Let me know and I’ll see if I can find the answer. (About ISBNs, I mean. Any other answer is 42.)

Tags: difference between ISBN-10 and ISBN-13, ISBN, What is an ISBN, What is ISBN-10, What is ISBN-13