The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

by Carol14 Comments
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Description: I was supposed to be having the time of my life. As it turns out, Esther Greenwood--brilliant, talented, successful, and increasingly vulnerable and disturbed--does have an eventful summer. The Bell Jar follows Esther, step by painful step, from her New York City June as a guest editor at a fashion magazine through the following, snow-deluged January. Esther slides ever deeper into devastating depression, attempts suicide, undergoes bungled electroshock therapy, and enters a private hospital. In telling her own story--based on Plath's own summer, fall, and winter of 1953-1954--Esther introduces us to her mother, her boyfriend Buddy, her fellow student editors, college and home-town acquaintances, and fellow patients. She scrutinizes her increasingly strained relationships, her own thoughts and feelings, and society's hypocritical conventions, but is defenseless against the psychological wounds inflicted by others, by her world, and by herself. Pitting her own aspirations against the oppressive expectations of others, Esther cannot keep the airless bell jar of depression and despair...
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Booking through Thursday

by Carol7 Comments
There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.) But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that. What niche books do YOU read? I can't think of any niche books that I read off-hand, which is now striking me as kind of sad. Do I not have any unusual interests? I've read a lot of animal books with my daughter, but that's her interest, not mine. My husband has a few pirate books around the house, but I've only glanced at them. Looking at the list of books I've read recently, I do have several that are food-related, whether they be memoirs or mysteries,  like  Murder Uncorked by Michele...
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Wondrous Words Wednesday

by Carol10 Comments
I ran across a few new-to-me words this week. calumniate- to make false and malicious statements about; slander. " They are calumniated, and are vindicated." (pg. 78, Trinity by Joseph F. Girzone) dirndl- full, gathered skirt attached to a waistband or hip yoke; any skirt with gathers at the waistband. "The skirt was a green dirndl with tiny black, white and electric-blue shapes swarming across it." (pg. 113, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath) corrasable- "erasable" "I counted out three hundred and fifty sheets of corrasable bond from my mother's stock in the hall closet." (pg 120, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath) Play along at Bermudaonion's Weblog....
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Teaser Tuesday

by Carol7 Comments
Grab your current read. Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from...that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given. Please avoid spoilers! My teaser: We slipped out of our seats and said Excuse me Excuse me Excuse me down the length of our row, while the people grumbled and hissed and shifted their rain boots and umbrellas to let us pass, and I stepped on as many feet as I could because it took my mind off this enormous desire to puke that was ballooning up in front of me so fast I couldn't see round it. The remains of a tepid rain were still sifting down when we stepped out into the street. -pg. 43, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of...
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