Advantages: Their lives are worth remembering Disadvantages: Their lives are over
This review was first written in response to a challenge for people to talk about their grandparents, now updated in the light of new material from my mother's papers. Unfortunately, the old photos haven't taken very well.
Albert and Edith
"Albert courted all my girls and then picked on poor Edith," my great-grandfather on that side of the family used to say.
In writing about my grandparents, it is tempting to start with Edith, the one I knew best and loved most, but she would have thought it quite wrong to take precedence over her husband.
Albert probably thought it was about time he had a few things his own way. The life into which he was born was a harsh one. He was the eldest son of a working family in a small mill-town on the moors ...
Advantages: Superb characters, great use of theme, very humorous Disadvantages: None in particular.
The Age of Innocence has an interesting context: it's set mostly in the early 1870s, but was published in 1920, at a time when society was undergoing massive change following World War I and the year that the US gave women the vote. Having said that, it reminds me very much of Vanity Fair, which was set in the early 19th century and in London, not New York society as The Age of Innocence is. There's a similar level of sharp observation and witty humour that reveals the rotten core of outwardly decent society.
Newland Archer is a young lawyer (one has to have a prestigious job, regardless of whether one needs the money, in order to be seen as useful and intelligent), and member of one of New York's best families, who has recently become engaged to May Welland, a member of another of New York's best families. At the outset of the book ...
Advantages: A completely absorbing read Disadvantages: A harrowing story
· Paperback: 305 pages
· Publisher: Abacus; New edition edition (1 Mar 2001)
· Language English
· ISBN-10: 0349113793
· ISBN-13: 978-0349113791
· Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12 x 2.2 cm
Available from Amazon from 18p
Summary: I just couldn't put this book down ...
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