By Taylor Jasmine | On November 15, 2015 | Updated September 27, 2022 | Comments (0)
From the 1986 Farrar, Straus and Giroux edition of Many Waters by Madeleine L’Engle: Many Waters continues the distinguished and popular Time Trilogy, made up of Newbery winner A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Plant.
Nothing especially interesting has ever happened to Sandy and Dennys, the run-of-the-mill twins in the extraordinary Murry family.
Nothing, that is, until the bitter cold afternoon when, fooling around in their parents’ lab, they type on the new computer: TAKE ME SOMEPLACE WARM … SOMEPLACE WARM AND SPARSELY POPULATED … Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On November 8, 2015 | Updated September 27, 2022 | Comments (1)
From the 1941 Doubleday, Doran edition: Edna Ferber’s distinguished novels of the American scene, Cimarron, Show Boat, So Big, and many others, she one special quality — they display at once he glamor and the strength of this country, and of the people who built it.
Saratoga Trunk is no exception. Its background, New Orleans and Saratoga in the eighteen eighties is one of the most picturesque America has produced.
But the theme behind the romance between Clint Maroon and Clio Dulling is that of the railroad builders, the men who flung across the land the roads of steel which united it, and toward that end were careless of the means they used. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On November 2, 2015 | Updated September 27, 2022 | Comments (0)
From the 1984 Viking edition of the 1956 novel for young readers, The 101 Dalmatians (originally published as The Hundred and One Dalmatians) by Dodie Smith:
Life was good for the Dalmatian couple Pongo and Missis. With the Dearlys to look after them, they lived in a comfortable home in London where they were able to start a remarkably large family.
Their fifteen beautifully spotted Dalmatian puppies became the talk of the town around Regent’s Park. But Cruella de Vil, a neighbor of the Dearlys, plans to cash in on these gems and their lovely coats! Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On October 30, 2015 | Updated August 12, 2025 | Comments (0)
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, then an unknown author, burst on the scene as an instant classic when it was published in 1964.
The children’s novel, set in Manhattan’s upper east side, stars 11-year-old Harriet M. Welsch, who wants to be a famous writer when she grows up. To prepare, she keeps a notebook in which she records details of the world around her in minute detail.
Her observations of the people in her life are funny, poignant, and occasionally downright mean. When her sixth-grade classmates find her notebook and read its contents, Harriet’s world turns upside down. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On October 24, 2015 | Updated September 30, 2022 | Comments (0)
Adapted from the 1999 Little, Brown edition of An Unfinished Woman by Lillian Hellman: The plays of Lillian Hellman — The Little Foxes, Watch on the Rhine, The Autumn Garden, Toys in the Attic, and all the others — speak eloquently for themselves and for Miss Hellman’s life in the theatre. An Unfinished Woman speaks for her life in the world outside.
It is in no sense a predictable theatrical memoir. Instead, she offers a detailed, unsparing self-scrutiny and a passionate, sometimes comic, always candid account of her experience, whether in New York, New Orleans and Hollywood, in Spain during the Civil War, or in Moscow and Leningrad during the Second World War and twenty years later. Read More→
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