Sunday, June 27, 2010
Coming Soon...
Up next in our reading schedule - "My Antonia" by Willa Cather. If you would like to read and discuss with us, consider buying, borrowing, or checking this book out from the library. An excerpt from the back of the book: "The American pioneer, returning to his country today, would find himself a stranger in a strange land. The cities of the plain have grown large and they have darkened the landscape. The values of an earlier time have been deeply eroded. During her lifetime, Willa Cather wrote with increasing anger against this loss, and she sought in her novels to recover 'the precious, the incommunicable past.' In "My Antonia", her famous portrait of a pioneer woman and very likely her best novel, she captured intact the strengths and passions of the early settlers, their spiritual attachment to the land they worked and came to love. These values inform what is both a vital novel of the American experience and a classic of world literature."
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Wow, this is a really great write-up for the back of the book. It definitely captures my interest. I'll have Pete check me this out from the St. Olaf library or see if there's a cheap copy at Monkey See Monkey Read!
ReplyDeleteRach,
ReplyDeleteWhile you're at it, have Pete check out a copy on "Giants in the Earth".
I just finished it today - the end will break your heart! I will be posting on it soon. Sarah still hasn't finished it - I told her to push through. Maybe I love it more because of the place I'm at in my life. I can't expect a 17 year old to feel the same way.
- Mom
I'd love to read this too! I'm part way through "When Christ and His Saints Slept," which is good so far, but mostly as an interesting, epic historical novel. I like Scarlet and Miniver a lot more, but this one is still interesting. Another proof that young adult fiction is often WAY BETTER than stuff written for adults!
ReplyDeleteVery true Hannah! I mean your comment about young adult fiction often being of better quality than adult fiction. Some of my favorite books are also considered young adult, even though I didn't list them on the profile of this blog. Perhaps I was trying too hard to seem "grown up'. :)
ReplyDelete- Karen
Mom and Sars--I just read a description of My Antonia, and it actually sounds super interesting! I'm looking forward to reading it with you guys! Let me know when you begin...
ReplyDeleteHannah,
ReplyDeleteSarah is still reading "Giants in the Earth", but as for me, I am nearly done with "My Antonia". If you and Rachel would read it, that would be awesome! I would love to know what you think! Reading both "Giants" and "Antonia" has been wonderful - they are both pioneer stories, and they are both beautiful in their own ways. Neither of them are difficult reads - the prose is relatively simple and forthright. If you could read them both, that would be even better! I will try to post soon on both books, but I don't want to spoil things for the rest of you readers! - Karen (Mom)