I often forget about Anthony Trollope. It is not that he is a bad writer, and it is not that I do not love his work, but simply because he does not have a distinctive Victorian voice. Think of Dickens with his rhetorical repetitions and figures of speech; Charlotte Bronte with her gloomy imagery and…

Thornfield Hall | A Book Blog

22.06.2025

Free Reading: The Pros and Cons of the TBR – Thornfield Hall

Someone's TBR! I do not have a TBR (To Be Read list). Of course I talk about it, because all bloggers do, but I don’t have a list. I walk around my bookcases, which are a bit like a TBR, and choose a book. It’s what I call free reading. Yet the TBR fascinates me. …

Thornfield Hall | A Book Blog

22.06.2025

When the Pages Crumble: Thomas Hardy’s “Selected Poems” – Thornfield Hall

I was reading Thomas Hardy’s Selected Poems when a page began to crumble. It flew out of the book like an Origami bird. I felt like a haunted character in a ghost story. What was I reading that Thomas Hardy came down from the sky and took away the page? Do you suppose Hardy manifested…

Thornfield Hall | A Book Blog

24.06.2025

How Liberal Are We? The “Anti-Mass” Culture – Thornfield Hall

"How liberal are we?" I wondered on the bus as I read Anti-Mass, a how-to guide to organizing collectives published in underground newspapers in the 1970s. The attack on wicked mass culture made me realize how much I enjoyed mass culture. I wanted to be bourgeois, to live in a nice house, preferably in the…

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Thornfield Hall | A Book Blog

Books & Literature

Trollope’s Portrait of a Middle-Aged Woman: Lady Carbury, Hustler & Writer – Thornfield Hall

Free Reading: The Pros and Cons of the TBR – Thornfield Hall

When the Pages Crumble: Thomas Hardy’s “Selected Poems” – Thornfield Hall

How Liberal Are We? The “Anti-Mass” Culture – Thornfield Hall

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