The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell follows the last remaining Brontë, Samantha Whipple, as she begins her education at Oxford. Samantha has inherited her late father's obsession with the Brontës and is determined to understand what it is her father wanted her to learn from them. She is also fighting the rest of the world's fascination with the missing Brontë fortune and the assumption that Samantha herself is hiding it, depriving the world of secret diaries and paintings by the Brontë sisters. Samantha attempts for a few years to fulfill her familial destiny and become a writer herself. She is sadly disappointed in her efforts:

And yet I couldn't produce anything of value. Now that I could say anything I wanted, I had nothing to contribute I was unable to take advantage of the intellectual emancipation for which my own ancestors had struggled so fearlessly I had taken the freedom Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Brontë and Mary Wollstonecraft had sent me, and thrown it right back at them. 

For that, I knew I would never be forgiven.

I learned so much about the Brontë family from this book that I never knew. For instance, this tidbit:

...Charlotte was the eldest, the most famous, and the ringleader of the family. Four foot eleven. Strong, opinionated, admirable. The entrepreneur. A real nineteenth- century ballbuster. Jane Eyre was her brainchild. Mr. Martin didn't bother mentioning that it was the sort of novel you adored as a child and then misunderstood for the rest of your life.

This last comment really hit home with me, as does this statement from Samantha's professor at Oxford:

"I will wager a guess and assume that, like most women your age, this was your favorite novel growing up."

Oh, was Jane Eyre my favorite novel! And I thought it made me so original! All the other girls I knew thought Pride and Prejudice was the best on offer from classic literature, which I considered highly overrated. Instead, I latched on to the dark and mysterious Jane Eyre with the brooding love interest and tortured heroine. Still, it wasn't so dark as Wuthering Heights, which I thought was just miserable. Oh, I thought I was so clever to recognize the best of the classical novels presented in high school English class, but according to Professor Orville, I was just another cliché. 

I have always thought that certain books have season of their own. Some are beach reads, some are for fall. I would classify this as a Winter book.  Set in cold, rainy Oxford and with such a dark take on some of literature's most revered women writers, I think it is probably best suited to January, the most melancholy of months in my opinion. (My, see how my writing so quickly assumes that of the book I've most recently read. Or attempts to, at any rate.)

For the first half to two-thirds of this book, I really enjoyed the main character. She's smart and snide and sarcastic and she doesn't play into anyone's expectations of her. By the end, however, I had lost interest in her. There are twists and turns, and while they are surprising, none are enough to make this book what I had expected it would be as I read the first half. I liked it, but I didn't love it. If you are a huge Brontë fan, this book might hold more interest for you, but be prepared to have some of your images of those famous writers shaken.

What I've Heard- All the Harry Potter Books

It has been a while since I've posted a What I've Heard and that is because I've been very busy listening to ALL of the Harry Potter books as narrated by Jim Dale. I love these audio books. They are so sweet and wonderful and I get so happy every time I hear the intro music. I listen to them about every two years or so and it is always such a wonderful experience.

They make me laugh and cry every time.

I have heard that there are people who prefer the Stephen Fry narration, but I will always be a Jim Dale devotee. The way that he voices the characters makes it sound as though he is surrounded by an entire cast of actors. The experience is so vivid that I sometimes forget if a part of the story is something that is in the movies or only from the audio books. Even if you have read the Harry Potter series, and maybe especially if you have, I highly recommend spending some time at the knee of Jim Dale and absorbing the story anew.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

As difficult as it is for me to believe, I have never read anything by Agatha Christie. Given that she wrote sixty-six novels and fourteen short story collections, it's a mystery how I have thus far missed out on them. I assure you it was unintentional. That all changed this week with my first Christie novel, And Then There Were None. In this murder mystery we meet ten characters who are all invited to a mansion on a prestigious island. These ten people appear to have nothing in common, and yet the reader learns of just one quality they all have very much alike. They all have a terrible secret and one by one they each will die for their secret. But who could be the killer? Only the dead can be assured of their innocence.

Christie wrote this book in 1940 and I couldn't help but think of the similarities to Clue. It was fun trying to guess who could be the killer, but the book wasn't as intriguing as I had hoped it would be. This was a very fast read, but a fun one. This would make an excellent vacation read or for a time you might not want to concentrate too much. Christie herself says at the beginning of the version I read how very pleased she is with the novel because only she knows how complicated it was to write with all the twists and turns and red herrings. I didn't love this book and I don't know if I'll rush right out to read more Christie, but I can certainly see its value as a novel. I would be open to more.

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig is exactly the kind of book I love. It is historical fiction and literary fiction and science fiction and a love story all in one. Why confine yourself to just one genre when you can have them all?!?

In this book, Tom Hazard looks like he is about forty when in fact he is actually more than ten times that age. Born in 1581, Tom's early years were like anyone else's. Once he hit puberty, however, his aging slowed to about one year for every fifteen. This may seem wonderful but in the late sixteenth century this was seen as evidence of witchcraft. Forced to keep moving and changing his identity, Tom has had a difficult time managing his life until he is introduced to The Albatross Society, or albas for short. With this group, Tom is assisted with his transitioning from one life to the next, but what is asked of him in return is a high price.

This book was wonderful. It took me longer to read than it should have because I was out of town and unable to get to it. Given the time I would have easily been able to finish in only a couple of days because it was just so engaging. Tom is a wonderful character- tortured and lonely, but also with brilliant observations on humanity.

I was angry, yes, but as was so often the case with anger, it was really just fear projecting outwards.

It is the simplest, purest joy on earth, I realise, to make someone you care about laugh.

And my favorite:

And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could life without doubt what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being f--ed over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?

I really enjoyed reading this book and I hope that you will read it, too. The Washington Post called it "a quirky romcom", but don't let that stop you.

And OH MY GOODNESS! I just this moment discovered that it will soon be a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch!! Okay, now you really do have to read it!