Texts From Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg

This reviewer isn’t even sure where to begin with this book.  Imagine your favorite classic authors and famous book characters had access to cell phones.  Add in some goofy modern day language and text-speak and you have Texts From Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg.  The result is a book that will have you snorting and LOLing from the very first page.  Here is an example in the form of a short exchange between Jo and Meg from Little Women:

"MEG

MEG

MEG WHAT’S ALL THIS

WHATS ALL THIS I’M HEARING 

ABOUT YOUR GETTING MARRIED

tell me it’s a wretched lie

Jo I don’t know how many more times 

we have to have this conversation

I’ll have it a THOUSAND TIMES if I must

But yes

I’m still marrying John tomorrow

OH GREAT TRIPLE-HORNED GOD

Just like I was planning to yesterday

This is unbearable

And also last month

Answer me this, then

Who exactly do you think is going to play Mercy when 

we put on my version of The Pilgrim’s Progress this summer?

I wrote that part for YOU

Wrote it beautifully in fact

I don’t know darling

She gets a cracking scene with the villain Rodrigo where 

he tries to poison her and she screams and faints and everything

I don’t remember anyone named Rodrigo 

in The Pilgrim’s Progress

THAT’S NEITHER HERE NOR THERE MEG

I’m very sorry

This production will be ruined

Why don’t you ask Amy?

I’m not even going to dignify that with a response"

[end scene]

Ortberg takes you through the text convos of such classics as Rebecca, Hamlet, Les Miserables, Great Expectations and many more.  You’ll even get to see what Edgar Allen Poe was thinking while he wrote The Raven!

In all seriousness, this book is absolutely delightful and with the holiday season fast approaching, would make a wonderful gift for any classic literature lovers in your life. 

Check out a copy of Texts From Jane Eyre from the library today!

Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman

Anne Fadiman, the author of Ex Libris, a book of essays about reading, is the best friend all readers and word lovers wish they had. With a gentle self-mocking humor, she examines the part books have played in her, her husband’s, her parents’, her  brother’s and her friends’ lives.  She discusses books: the buying, collecting, reading, shelving, inscribing and care of them.  She describes a marriage in which merging book collections is a more difficult task than dividing chores or managing a family budget. She depicts a family that pores over a restaurant menu, not for descriptions of the food they might eat but to search for spelling and grammatical errors. While reading older books, she mourns for the vocabulary and rejoices at the gender roles we have lost. She explains why parents’ reading for their own pleasure is important to instilling a love of reading in their children.  And, although the readers know that Anne and her family and friends are probably smarter and better educated than we are, she lets us know that the love of books (any and all) is a common denominator which unites rather than divides. 

Check out Ex Libris @ the library!

My Ideal Bookshelf

In My Ideal Bookshelf more than one hundred creative individuals share the titles of the books that are most important to them. Artist Jane Mount has painted a bookshelf for each of these lists and a short essay accompanies each shelf. The cultural figures featured in this book are not only writers and editors but also musicians, chefs, actors, photographers, designers and an athlete. Some names are well-known and some are not. This book can be enjoyed in many different ways. The art is so delightful you can enjoy just looking at the pictures. You can find out which books some of your favorite celebrities value. You can see who has read the books you have read. You can keep track of which titles and authors appear most often. You can even create your own bookshelf, photocopying the blank graphic on the back cover.  Fiction, history, biography, philosophy, poetry, science and even children’s books fit on these eclectic celebrity bookshelves and they might also be part of yours!

One for the Books by Joe Queenan

If you are inclined to read to friends within earshot funny or insightful or even maddening statements from the book you are reading, I suggest you read One for the Books only when you are alone. Otherwise, you may read the entire book twice, once silently and once out loud. Joe Queenan has been a passionate reader since childhood and he has passionate opinions about books: the books he has read, the books he plans to read, the books he refuses to read, the books his friends have read, the books his friends recommend to him, why people read, where people read, bookstores, libraries, book clubs and summer reading lists. And he uses his sharp wit to comment on these subjects. You are bound to be insulted by his opinion of one or more of your favorite books. You might bristle at his opinions of book clubs. You will be shocked by his views of libraries. But you will always be amused and entertained, and you will always be engaged. You may agree when he defines hagiography as books “written by dopes in the service of doofuses.” In fact, you may want to say, “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Don’t! The author has definite opinions on that phrase. You may disagree and want to scream, “My Friend Flicka is not a cheerful book!” or, “But I love The Kite Runner!” In fact, you will either agree or disagree with virtually everything he writes. After all, you are also a passionate reader or you wouldn’t be reading a book about reading books. In the end, the author writes movingly about why people read, explaining how avid readers use books to both connect with and escape from the world. This book will make you proud to be bookish.