Ramblings of a Bookworm
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Daphne Du Maurier, Non-fiction on Mar 10th, 2010
Why do writers write? How do they go about it? What inspires them? The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories gives a glimpse into the mind of Daphne Du Maurier.
Du Maurier began to write Rebecca in 1937 when she was thirty years old, living in Alexandria and feeling homesick for Cornwall. She jotted down chapter summaries [...]
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Early Reviewer, LibraryThing, Non-fiction, Poetry on Mar 4th, 2010
I didn’t know much about Shelley before I read Poetic Lives: Shelley by Daniel Hahn. This biography gives brief details of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s short but extraordinary life, from his birth in 1792 to his early death in 1822, shortly before his thirtieth birthday.
The opening paragraph caught my immediate attention in pointing out that Shelley was not that far away [...]
Posted in Autobiography, Biography, Booking through Thursday on Nov 5th, 2009
Deb’s question today is: Which do you prefer? Biographies written about someone? Or Autobiographies written by the actual person (and/or ghost-writer)?
I’m not sure I can decide which I prefer.
I read both biographies and autobiographies and they both have their pros and cons. Both can be biased and written to present a certain portrait, either flattering [...]
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen, Non-fiction on Jul 4th, 2009
It’s been a few weeks since I finished reading Jane Austen: a Life by Claire Tomalin. I listed this book as one I hadn’t reviewed in a Weekly Geeks post - the idea being to spur me on to writing the outstanding reviews and invite questions about the books from other book bloggers.
Dorothy, who sent me the book [...]
Posted in Biography, Non-fiction, Patrick Marnham on Jan 12th, 2009
I’m still catching up with writing about books I read last year. Wild Mary by Patrick Marnham is a biography of Mary Wesley, the author of Camomile Lawn and other books. My only knowledge of her before reading this was that her first book was published when she was 70 and my impression was that she [...]
Posted in Biography, Valerie Grove on Nov 1st, 2008
I’ve just finished reading Dear Dodie: the life of Dodie Smith by Valerie Grove. It has taken some time to read as at first I only read short sections at a sitting. This week I have spent more time on it - one reason being that it is a library book and I can’t renew it. [...]
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Books, Morton N Cohen, Non-fiction on Nov 10th, 2007
Lewis Carroll: a biography by Morton N Cohen (1995)
It has taken me a long time to read this biography of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). At times I nearly stopped reading it as Cohen makes so many assumptions and speculates seemingly with little evidence to support his interpretation of the facts. His account of Charles Dodgson’s [...]
Posted in Biography, Books, Family, Morton N Cohen, Non-fiction, photos on Sep 25th, 2007
I’m reading Lewis Carroll: a biography by Morton N Cohen. Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, two of my favourite books from childhood, was the pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832 – 1898), a Victorian mathematics don at Oxford University.
In this post I’m concentrating on Charles’s keen interest [...]
Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Non-fiction on Jun 16th, 2007
D and I finished reading Wilberforce with only a couple of hours to go before the book group meeting last Thursday. As D said it was like climbing a mountain – a hard slog at first and when you get half way you wonder why you are reading it and whether you should give up [...]
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Ramblings of a Bookworm
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