waysideviolet - cozy, lovely things

It’s hard to believe, but today is the very last post in the reading List series. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have and maybe you’ve even found a new favorite!  And if you missed the first two you can check them out over here and here. Enjoy!

Let’s get to the books!

(Joel’s blog)

Book: The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox

A couple of years ago we were in Barnes & Noble and I saw this book whose cover featured the back of a man in a top hat in the foreground and the foggy streets of London in the background. I bought the book based on the cover and it’s one of the best book purchases I’ve ever made.

The Meaning of Night is set in Edwardian England and is filled with intrigue, book nerd trivia, stolen birthrights, murder, and a bit of passion here and there. From the first few pages that outline the murder of a random stranger in the streets of London, I was hooked.

The story takes you to rolling meadows and huge country estates, and then back to the seedy underbelly of London while characters begin to display eccentricities and despicable vices. The tale is complicated, yet riveting. The writing is superb. So superb that I picked up the sequel just to get back into the story.

Seriously. You should read it.

Book: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies By Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen

“Mr. Collins tells me that you are schooled in the deadly arts, Miss Bennet.”

No one ever thinks of Elizabeth Bennet as being a zombie fighting bad ass, but that is indeed what you find in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I must admit, when I passed this book in the store one day I was both appalled and deeply intrigued.  My passionate allegiance to all things Jane Austen almost prevented me from buying the book, but my curiosity honestly just got the best of me.  I started out reading the book thinking that I would be insulted by the butchering (no pun intended) of the classic Elizabeth and Darcy love story.  What I did find, however, is that this book is rather fantastic and I loved every apocalyptic word of it!

First, the storyline doesn’t change as much as you would think.  All the major plot and loveliness of the story is intact.  All you have to do is add in a few attacks from the undead and girls with muskets under their petticoats.  One thing I really loved about the book was that the author kept the romantic era around it.  Everyone still speaks in their classic ways, their conversations might just involve some talks about ninjas instead of governesses.

As I said before, the classic storyline is in there.  Mr. Bingley leaves the fortress of London to move away from the zombie epidemic.  He meets and falls head over heels with Jane Bennet, Elizabeth’s older sister, but is torn away from her by the proud Mr. Darcy, who believes that Jane has been bitten and is soon becoming an “unmentionable.”  Elizabeth swears to hate (and kill!) Mr. Darcy for the pain he caused her sister.  There is still the lovely Mr. George Wickham with his sneaky ways and empty promises (but he gets his in the end) and the wonderful realization of love between Elizabeth and Darcy.  Just add a couple of duels and the undead.  What more could you ask for!

There are a couple of minor plot changes in this version, such as Elizabeth setting off to kill Darcy for separating Jane and Mr. Bingley.  Another, rather delightful, change as well is a fight to the death between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth when the former accuses the latter of being engaged to Mr. Darcy.  (That’s how we all wanted it to end the first time around anyways!)  But nothing was so drastically changed that I (as an avid Austenite) was offended or upset by.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was an instant favorite as soon as I started reading it.  It gives you the beloved romance of an Austen book with all of the gory fights of a Planet Terror remake.  I wanted to live in this book, with the undead, Mrs. Bennet, and all.  For all the guys out there that swore that no one could ever get them to read Jane Austen, I think I’ve found the book for you!

(I couldn’t resist giving a recommendation of my own!)

Book: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

One spring break a small car full of friends and I headed back to my parents’ house in West Virginia. It was an eight hour drive through some pretty boring parts of Indiana and Kentucky, but before we were even thirty minutes out of town Anna pulled out a copy of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and asked me if I had read it. I hadn’t. She handed me the book and I read page after page until it was too dark to read. I finished the book during that break and it has been a favorite of mine ever since!

The story takes place around the 1940s somewhere in the English countryside. It tells about the lives of two sisters who live in a dilapidated and ever-crumbling old ruin of a castle with their eccentric, author father, their model/naturalist stepmother, a younger and bookish brother, a handsome and often unpaid servant, and their boredom.

Cassandra the youngest of the sisters is the book’s narrator. In fact, the book is more of a journal in which she attempts to capture the characters of her family members and those they encounter. I have to agree with the blurb on the cover of my copy,

“This book has one of the most charismatic narrators I’ve ever met.” – J. K. Rowling

Dodie Smith so perfectly shows the world from the eyes of a young woman who has been brought up on literature and romance and whose views and hopes have been shaped by Austen and the Brontës. The story is about what happens when these things crash into reality. If you’ve ever been fifteen and remember discovering the joys of Austen (I was never much of a Brontë girl myself), you may catch a glimpse of yourself in Cassandra.

A big thank you to each of the guest bloggers for their great recommendations!

Tags: books, fall guest blogger series, reading