Category Archives: literature

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

Posted on December 8, 2015 by booksandbuttons

This is the book club selection for December.  It’s a five act play, originally written in 1897.  The play swept the audiences of France with its charms of gallantry and romance.  The swash-buckling Cyrano . . .

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Posted in drama, literature | Tagged | 3 Comments

A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr

Posted on November 18, 2015 by booksandbuttons

Gosh, this was a lovely book.  Tom Birken, a World War I survivor, takes a month-long job in the country north of London to clean up a long-hidden mural of artwork in the attic of a country church.

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Billy Budd by Herman Melville

Posted on November 17, 2015 by booksandbuttons

It’s the book club selection for this month—meeting tonight.  Have you read it?  Back in high school?  I had never read it. This was Herman Melville’s last? late work after a series of failures and never published while he was … Continue reading →

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Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor

Posted on October 14, 2015 by booksandbuttons

I shan’t present you with a photo of the book cover this time because I don’t like the way these Elizabeth Taylor books have been portrayed in the reissues.  The photographs never show the kind of picture I have of … Continue reading →

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Posted in book review, books, literature | 4 Comments

Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore

Posted on October 11, 2015 by booksandbuttons

“Johnny, I hardly knew ye.”  That’s John Ridd–hero of the old classic Lorna Doone.   I’ve had Lorna Doone on my to-read list in my mind for a long time—but so easy to forget it’s there!  Recently, a friend loaned me … Continue reading →

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Reading Turgenev by William Trevor

Posted on September 27, 2015 by booksandbuttons

William Trevor lives in England.  But he was born, raised and educated in Ireland.  And, like James Joyce, although he left Ireland, he never stopped writing with an Irish melancholy. In this novella, Mary Louise Dallon is the youngest of three … Continue reading →

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The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

Posted on September 22, 2015 by booksandbuttons

This is a quick little novella to read in a few hours. It’s about Queen Elizabeth discovering the joy of reading.  You’ll enjoy if it you are an Anglophile and like reading about the monarchy in a humorous manner or if … Continue reading →

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The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

Posted on August 11, 2015 by booksandbuttons

What a wonderful book!  A good friend recommended it to me in the spring and I added it to my summer reading plan. For some reason, a lot of other selections barged their way in and I didn’t decide to … Continue reading →

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Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee

Posted on August 1, 2015 by booksandbuttons

You can’t go home again.  You can go home again. This book was written in 2015 and takes place in the 1950s in Maycomb, Alabama.  The author wrote To Kill A Mockingbird.  That was published in 1960.  We’ve had a long … Continue reading →

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Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Posted on July 30, 2015 by booksandbuttons

Yep, I finished it.  The book club finished it.  Well, most of the book club finished it.  And of the ones who did, two said they “were glad they read it”.  When someone says that–along the lines of  ‘I wouldn’t … Continue reading →

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Posted in book club, book review, books, literature | 2 Comments