Category Archives: British Literature

Zora Neale Hurston, Behave, Innocents and Others, Darkest Corners, Rereading Roald Dahl, All Of A Kind Family

American Literature, British Literature June 14, 2016 Superfast Reader 1 Comment

Reading to my kids is the best. In the last month we’ve reread The BFG, The Witches, and George’s Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl. I also shared with them the first two books in the All of a Kind Family series and my girls love those girls as much as I did when I read them as a girl myself. Such a treat to hear them say the same kinds of things I said to myself when I read the books. In grown up reading:…

The Lie by CL Taylor

British Literature June 7, 2016 Superfast Reader

In The Lie, we meet Jane Hughes, a seeming do-gooder who works at an animal shelter and lives a relatively quiet life. But it seems that her past is about to catch up with her, because someone knows who she used to be, and why she has worked so hard to flee from her past. Five years ago, Jane went to Nepal with her three best friends–and only two of the came back. The other woman sold her story to the papers and dragged Jane…

The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell

British Literature June 7, 2016 Superfast Reader

I have a few things in common with one of the characters in The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell. I am the mother of girls, I homeschool them, and we belong to a private park. However, I hope that I won’t hold illusions about what my kids might be capable of. Both moms in this book suffer from a common literary problem–they are unable to imagine that their children may be up to no good, and while harboring this illusion, they continually push…

Roald Dahl, Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Chains

American Literature, British Literature May 18, 2016 Superfast Reader

My almost six-year-old and I have continued our Roald Dahl streak with George’s Marvelous Medicine, about a boy whose grandma is the meanest lady ever. Every day she drinks a horrible concoction so George decides to take everything in the house and mix up something truly dreadful for her–with unexpected results. It’s not as dark as The Witches but has that same trickster spirit. We both really enjoyed it. And we finally convinced big sister to join the Roald Dahl fun so now she’s listening…

Everybody Rise, Burn Baby Burn, Rereading Roald Dahl

American Literature, British Literature March 22, 2016 Superfast Reader

Sometimes as a parent you get those moments when you feel like you must be doing something right, and having my 5-year-old ask me to reread her The BFG and The Witches was definitely one of those moments. We enjoyed them just as much the 2nd time through, and now she’s eager to have me read The BFG a third time so that her big sister can get why we think snozzcumbers are so funny. Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina hooked me right away…

Viral, Lorrie Moore, Girl Through Glass, New Chris Bohjalian

American Literature, British Literature March 6, 2016 Superfast Reader

I’m like my very on book club as my latest reads have all been women-centered and fairly mainstream. But while all of them were easy, diverting reads, only one of them lived up to the jacket copy. Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America was a departure for me as I hardly ever read short stories. This one I did in fact read for a book club, the first one I’ve joined in ages. As much as I love to read, I don’t generally do well in…

BFG, Flora and Ulysses, Ben & Me, and Ender’s Game

American Literature, British Literature January 19, 2016 Superfast Reader

Oh, I am hard-pressed to say which of the characters in these books for kids/young adults I love the most! The Big Friendly Giant, Ulysses the flying squirrel, Amos the mouse who lives in Ben Frankin’s fur hat, or Ender, the 6-year-old military mastermind. Okay, my feelings for Ender aren’t exactly affection or delight like I have for the others, but this is my most recent batch of books read for homeschool. The BFG was yet another Roald Dahl I’d never read before, and I’m…

Witch of Blackbird Pond, Roald Dahl’s Witches, and Sign of the Beaver

American Literature, British Literature November 27, 2015 Superfast Reader

In our homeschool, we just finished Week 12 with Sonlight Core D and we are still really happy with it. I have jettisoned a couple of books because I didn’t like them, but it was easy enough to substitute other books. We really loved the read-alouds Sign of the Beaver and Witch of Blackbird Pond, both by the tremendous Elizabeth George Speare. She brings such a deep humanity to her historical fiction, and is a master at building suspense. Both books brought history to life…

Cormoran Strike, Dungeons and Dragons, and Creepy ‘Eileen’

American Literature, British Literature November 24, 2015 Superfast Reader

I’m utterly enthralled by Cormoran Strike, the private detective at the center of JK Rowling’s pseudonymous crime series. The third book, Career of Evil, finds Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott the target of a psychopath with a penchant for dismemberment–and Robin seems to be his target. Rowling (as Robert Galbraith) understands that she can’t just deliver an intricately plotted crime story, she also has to take the characters further on their journey. At the end of the book, I was so heavily invested in…

Last from Ruth Rendell, Fantasy Debut

American Literature, British Literature November 2, 2015 Superfast Reader

I’m so sad to be writing a review of Dark Corners, because it’ll be the last book from one of my favorite authors of all time. Ruth Rendell died earlier this year and left behind a tremendous legacy. As her alter ego Barbara Vine she wrote beautifully complex psychological thrillers, and while her Rendell books were more procedural they still always had crazy amounts of depth. Dark Corners isn’t her greatest Rendell work (I reserve that praise for Judgment in Stone), but I was duly…

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