News
Entertainment
Science & Technology
Life
Culture & Art
Hobbies
News
Entertainment
Science & Technology
Culture & Art
Hobbies
- home
›- Thornfield Hall | A Book Blog
›- Books & Literature
Thornfield Hall | A Book Blog - Books & Literature
13 | Follower
To Teach or Not to Teach – Thornfield Hall
We did not worry about the future. The ideal would be to join the Peace Corps; the practical would be to work on a doctorate… forever. And then there was a third option. “Oh, God, will we have to be teachers?” A friend in Michigan taught Latin at a Catholic boys’ school. She wrote that…
Living off the Grid: Annika Norling’s “The Colony” – Thornfield Hall
"Here’s the thing. I don’t even like nature. I don’t like being outdoors." – Emilie in “The Colony” Annika Norling’s The Colony, translated from the Swedish by Alice E. Olsson, is one of my favorite novels so far this year. Norling explores the dynamics and isolation of a small community of outcasts living on a…
Jocasta’s Wisdom in Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” – Thornfield Hall
THIS ISN'T A POST, SO MUCH AS NOTES After shuddering through the first half of Sophocles' gory tragedy, I thanked the gods for the appearance of Jocasta, the most sensible character in Oedipus Rex. In case you are unfamiliar with Oedipus, he fled his hometown because of a prophecy that he would kill his father…
Why We Live in Flyover Country – Thornfield Hall
Fargo: classic flyover country For most of my life, I have lived in cities. Not New York, not London, not Seattle, not Houston: those places are too large and sophisticated for me. I live in flyover country. You know these cities, or do not. Some have gutted-out centers and a pinwheel of thriving suburbs; in…
A Short Masterpiece: Henry James’s “Washington Square” – Thornfield Hall
“Will a wrong motive always do wrong?” Cynthia Ozick in the introduction to James’s Washington Square (Modern Library, 2002) When I first read Washington Square decades ago, it seemed one of Henry James’s simpler books. Now I’ve changed my mind. The twist of the plot leaves the reader breathless. In James’s fictional universe, fortune hunters…
Nobody Likes a Bacchante – Thornfield Hall
I have been reading about the Bacchantes. And a long, strange trip it’s been, as the Grateful Dead said. I’ve never come across a scarier bunch. If they show up at your Quaker meeting, change churches. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Euripides’s The Bacchae, all of the Bacchantes are women. As I vaguely understand it, they…
“Superbloom,” Influencers, and Too Many Books – Thornfield Hall
Nicholas Carr, author of Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, begins with an alarming anecdote. Jaci Marie Smith, an influencer with a YouTube channel and Instagram account, took a selfie in Walker Canyon among the masses of flowers during poppy season. Only it wasn’t a normal poppy season: heavy rains had caused a…
Defying the State: Antigone As Heroine – Thornfield Hall
Perhaps it was because I first read Sophoces while a war raged that Antigone is my favorite Greek tragedy; perhaps it is Antigone’s passion for justice. Some regard Antigone as a heroine, others are less enthusiastic. Determined to honor her brother Polynices with burial rites, she breaks the law. The new king, Creon, also her…
Stage-Managed Conversations & Targeted Listeners – Thornfield Hall
In The New York Times Book Review (April 13, 2025), Dan Piepenbring reviews a book about the art of conversation. Actually, it is about the science of conversation. This quirky book is called Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves, by Alison Wood Brook, a professor at the Harvard Business School.…
Excuse Me, Jane Austen, and Rediscovering “The Bertrams” – Thornfield Hall
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a computer, needs to spend less screen time.” Excuse me, Jane Austen. I NEED TO BREAK UP WITH THE INTERNET. And so I curled up in a cozy chair with a neglected Trollope novel, The Bertrams. I’m not sure anyone reads The Bertrams…
DENIED ACCESS: A Zoom Story – Thornfield Hall
A few months ago I attended a Zoom book chat. Hope for the best, expect the worst. It did not go well. I was overwhelmed. There was too much going on visually: tiny pictures of 60 or 70 people (mostly Women of a Certain Age) at the top of the screen, several of them typing…
My “-Ology” Phobia: Anthropology, Psychology & Biology – Thornfield Hall
Gym class? Near the end of senior year, my advisor asked what I planned to do after graduation. “Maybe the Peace Corps?” I said timidly. He tried not to laugh. “I’m not sure your classics background would benefit the people of third-world countries." I felt a little relieved, because I don’t even like camping. Then…
A Retirement Community in Florida: “Sun City,” by Tove Jansson – Thornfield Hall
In Tove Jansson's comic novel, Sun City, set in a retirement community in Florida, the residents of the Berkeley Arms engage in mischief and mayhem. Much of the action takes place in the rocking chairs on the veranda. If they choose a chair unwisely, they are stuck beside people they dislike, because no one ever…
Reader on the Verge: An Existential Comedy – Thornfield Hall
It was a beautiful day in April. Crocuses, forsythia, etc. Alas, I was on the verge of a reading breakdown. First I read the cereal box. Then I read the slogan on a cough drop wrapper: “INSPIRE ENVY.” (You will not find enlightenment from cough drop wrappers.) And then I picked up C. H. B.…
My Accidental Success & Weekend Reading – Thornfield Hall
Success Alert: A Shortlist Story I love book prizes, but never pick the winner. This year I have read four of the six novels on the Women’s Prize shortlist. I wasn't prescient: I picked them at random. Some bloggers and vloggers read the entire 16-book longlist and then predict the shortlist and the winner. I'm strictly…
The Bacchantes, Part II: The Murder of Orpheus – Thornfield Hall
As I mentioned yesterday, I am not a Bacchante. I don’t drink wine, take drugs, or caper with a god in manic ecstasy. I try to remember: Dionysus/Bacchus is not a gentle god. Perhaps he makes merriment somewhere, but in classical literature he is savage. The Roman Bacchus is associated with Liber Pater, an ancient Italian…
The Bewildering World of Bacchantes – Thornfield Hall
"Gods should be exempt from human passion." - The Bacchae I’m not a Bacchante. You know that. I’m a mad reader. I do not even drink wine. Iced tea, please. But wine is the chosen drink of Dionysus. And his followers, the Bacchae, get drunk and are possessed by the god, dance wildly, tear animals…
Amaryllis’s Choice: Richard Jeffries’s “Amaryllis at the Fair” – Thornfield Hall
“The reader who expects a novel will be disappointed.”- David Garnett in the introduction to Richard Jeffries’s Amaryllis at the Fair (Everyman's Library) Certainly I expected a novel, and Amaryllis at the Fair is extraordinary. David Garnett bases his criticism on the lack of plot. Certainly the book can be static, but I glimpsed…
The Muddle of Acronyms: Do You “DNF?” – Thornfield Hall
The other day my husband and I were saucer-eyed as we ate popcorn and drank Diet Snapple in front of a BookTube vlog chat. "Why didn’t you DNF it?” the vlogger hostess asked a guest. My husband is new to BookTube. “What’s DNF?” he asked me. “’Did not finish.’” How I know this, where I…
Unrecorded Lives: The Influence of a Classics Professor – Thornfield Hall
In Elizabeth Strout's stunning novel, Tell Me Everything, I was fascinated by her characters' musings on "unrecorded lives." Inspired by these stories, I have recorded my own memories of the unrecorded life of a favorite classics professor who inspired students for decades. N.B. I accidentally deleted the end of the first video, Part I, so…
A Moving Novel: Elizabeth Strout’s “Tell Me Everything” – Thornfield Hall
Elizabeth Strout's Tell Me Everything brought tears to my eyes. Longlisted for the Women’s Prize, this gracefully-written, moving novel brings together characters from Strout's previous books, including Lucy Barton, a successful writer who moved from New York to Maine with her ex-husband William during the pandemic, and Olive Kitteridge, the cranky retired schoolteacher in the…
Moments of Misguided Vanity (Revised Version) – Thornfield Hall
Misguided vanity. It might be in a Psychiatrist’s Handbook. I looked at a space in my mouth where a molar had been removed and decided I wanted an implant. The insurance company wouldn’t pay for it, though, because it is cosmetic. “A moment of misguided vanity,” I muttered. “Hm?” “Thank you!” Click. Literary heroines suffer from…
Are There Too Many People on the Internet? – Thornfield Hall
Online photo of a Zoom meeting of a book group. Sometimes it’s too much. Do you ever feel that way? . You look up a book at Goodreads or LibraryThing, and realize that thousands of people are reading it, thousands have already read it, and thousands more want to read it. If so many readers…
The Enchantment of Books – Thornfield Hall
One day, when I was cursing a document, a co-worker told me not to be a “nervous Nellie.” I was startled but I liked this woman, who popped in every morning with a cup of tea or flowers from her garden. I was feeling tense, and she tried to cheer me up. The phrase "nervous…
The Brilliant Women’s Prize Longlist (the Uncensored Version) – Thornfield Hall
I love awards: the Booker Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and on and on. Every year I especially look forward to the Women’s Prize longlist. And this year it is unusual, because the judges are going in a pop direction. They are honoring pop fiction and borderline-genre fiction as well as literary…
Ratings and Scattered Thoughts: 3 Books Longlisted for the Women’s Prize – Thornfield Hall
Do you enjoy star ratings? Here are a few scattered thoughts on three longlisted novels for the Women’s Prize, along with my star ratings – the most fun bit. Miranda July’s lively comic novel, All Fours, was on every "Best of" list at the end of 2024. Yes, the first part is very funny. The narrator,…
Radical Feminism vs. Cancel Culture – Thornfield Hall
One day in the 1970s, I sat in a crowded auditorium at the Student Union. Although there were a few men, the audience was primarily women. Everyone was restless and excited. We were there to see Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique. This feminist text was my introduction to feminism. And why isn’t Betty…
An Italian Predecessor of “The Group” & the Threat of the Algorithm in a Women’s Prize-longlisted Novel – Thornfield Hall
Version 1.0.0 Fans of the Italian writer Alba de Cespedes (1911-1997), the author of Forbidden Notebook, will love her first novel, There’s No Turning Back. It reminds me of Mary McCarthy’s The Group: both tell the stories of eight women who are friends in their university days. There’s No Turning Back was published in 1938…
Physical Appearance in Charlotte Bronte’s “Villette” – Thornfield Hall
Charlotte Bronte’s most popular novel is Jane Eyre, but Villette is by far her most complex, and my favorite. This near-psychedelic maze of a novel charts the narrator Lucy’s survival in a foreign country, her challenges as a working woman, and the price of solitude – illness, hallucinations, and mental breakdown - when she lives…
The Ziplock Dickens – Thornfield Hall
My dream job has been announced on Instagram. The Charles Dickens Museum is hiring!We're delighted to announce this rare opportunity to join our museum as a curator. Working to maintain the museum as a high-profile heritage site, you'll develop visitor-facing programs including displays and exhibitions, as well as undertaking key aspects of collections management and…
The Sadness of the War Horse – Thornfield Hall
post bellator equus positis insignibus Aethon/ it lacrimans guttisque umectat grandibus ora. - Virgil’s Aeneid For months I've been haunted by the crying warhorse in Virgil’s Aeneid. Aethon (Blaze) mourns the death of his master with tears. “After his splendid trappings are put aside, the warhorse Aethon walks crying and wets his face with abundant…
THE THORNFIELD HALL NEWSLETTER – Thornfield Hall
Spring 2025, Issue 4 In this issue, I consider the pros and cons of Zoom, show you my latest collectible books, and "review" a charming collection of John Verney's humor writing and cartoons. Va-va Voom! It’s a Zoom World! “Then the faces of all the other women in our book group popped up, each in…
The Zoom Wardrobe Checklist – Thornfield Hall
Love the Wikipedia Beatnik poet look! My first Zoom meeting was fun but nerve-racking. That's because I worried about what to wear. “Everybody Zooms. They’ll only see your top,” a friend explained. Nonetheless, I felt a certain anxiety. And so I had a checklist. POSSIBLE ZOOM GARB. Glamorous black sweater and black jeans. Were any…
Waiting for the Women’s Prize – Thornfield Hall
Winner of the first Orange Prize (Women's Prize), 1996 I am a literary award freak. I love the Booker Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the P. G. Wodehouse Prize... And I have followed The Women’s Prize through three incarnations, since its inception in 1996. First it was the Orange Prize, sponsored by…
Cathy, the Comic Strip – Thornfield Hall
Cathy Guisewites’s delightful Cathy was my favorite comic strip. It was one of the few syndicated comic strips written and drawn by a woman, and certainly the only one about a career woman. There were a lot of Cathys and Kathys when Cathy was first published in 1976 (the Caitlins came later), and a lot…
A New Book for the Bronte Collection – Thornfield Hall
Charlote Bronte's Shirley, Folio Society 1968 People say I buy too many books. Of course I buy books. I read them, too. “Do you need more library books?” a friend asked. She was ready to do an intervention. I could feel it. “Oh no.” I was kind of appalled. “I just love books!” And then…
Tracking the Locution: The Edith Wharton Mystery – Thornfield Hall
I very much enjoyed Olivia Wolfgang-Smith’s whimsical new novel, Mutual Interest, the story of three queer misfits who build a business empire based on soap and perfume (later they add scented candles). Set in Manhattan at the turn of the century, it examines business from a queer point-of-view. Mutual Interest is not just about work:…
One Cup of Tea at a Time – Thornfield Hall
I don't have this mug, but isn't it lovely? “It’s common sense to make only one cup at a time,” a friend said. I agree with her. “I see what you mean.” Nonetheless, I have my ways. I am coming down with a cold, so I filled a teapot with Lapsang Souchong, a mug with…
Three for February: Two Books & One Poem – Thornfield Hall
An ominous snowstorm is predicted, and our city is shutting down. The snow plows are at the ready, and it will be the first work these men have had this year. The townspeople will rise at dawn and get out their shovels and snowblowers, and whoever gets up first will clear the sidewalks all the…