A few of my favorite reads…
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Fiction ※ Poetry ※ Nonfiction ※ Drama
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All tagged 19th century
This fall I lost myself in the wilds of John Williams’ Butcher’s Crossing (1960) and quickly recognized its power and its brilliance. This western novel follows the path of Harvard student, William Andrews. Andrews leaves the comforts of civilized life back East to venture westward. It is the age of the great bison hunts, of making one’s fortunes in the unclaimed lands of the American West; it is the late 1800s and the romance of the West calls young Will Andrews.
Desperate Remedies (1871) was Thomas Hardy’s first published novel. Written chronologically by date, from 1835 to the 1860s, the chapter title move the reader through “The Events of Thirty Years,” “The Events of a Fortnight,” “The Events of Eight Days” and so on. With every passing hour, day, week, year, Desperate Remedies leads its reader through the coming-of-age events in young Cytherea Graye’s life.
In the weeks leading up to Halloween 2018, my family headed east to Boston and coastal Massachusetts. In addition to the Boston downtown (and all its Freedom Trail historical glory), we visited both Salem and New Bedford, Massachusetts. In preparation for our trip I chose to read Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables and Sena Jeter Naslund’s Ahab’s Wife: or, the Star Gazer (1999).
