Second Best Books 2010

I only ever have three or four books that I can call my very favourites, but I read a lot of wonderful books, so it seems unfair to leave them out of my end of the year round-up. Here are my second favourite books, in reverse chronological order of when I read them.

A Proper Education for Girls, by Elaine diRollo - A late addition, but a worthy one. This was a very colourful, very admirable historical novel, which I quite enjoyed reading. Full review here.

Evelina, by Frances Burney - This is perhaps the only 18th century novel I've ever read, and my fondness for it was wholly unexpected. It was a lovely read. Full review here.

A Room with a View, by E.M. Forster - I'm a little surprised this didn't make it onto the Best Books list, but my memory of it seems to have faded too much. But it was another unexpectedly wonderful read, and I'd like to read it again some day. See here.

Parnassus on Wheels, by Christopher Morley - A lovely little story, and a thoroughly bookish one. Full review here.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, by Katherine Howe - Historical, fantastical, academic--in short, all my favourite themes in a book. See here.

The Man of Property, by John Galsworthy - Caught my attention so well that I'm just beginning the last book of the Forsyte Saga. Wonderfully written, and an intriguing story. See here.

And tomorrow, you'll hear about my favourite books.

Reading classics

Ever since I read Evelina I've been meaning to read more classics. I really enjoyed Evelina, and A Room with a View, and the Forsyte Saga, and all the other classics I've read in the last couple of years. There's a reason classics are classic--they generally deserve it.

I sometimes feel like some of the books I read I read because blogland is into them. All the 20th century domestic fiction is very big on all the book blogs I read, so I wind up reading a lot of books like that. Don't get me wrong, I do really like those books, but I wonder if I'd be reading them now if I hadn't started reading about them on blogs. When I started reading more grown-up books somewhere along the line I gravitated more towards classics, but I've since stopped reading as many of them. So maybe it'll be a New Year's resolution to get back to them. Bearing in mind I never make New Year's resolutions in much seriousness.

Of course, I have no real thoughts as to what classics I want to read. What are your favourites?

Review: Evelina

I've been hearing about Frances Burney in passing ever since I started reading Jane Austen criticism a year and a half ago. Though we think of Jane Austen as a 19th century writer, she spent her first 25 years in the 18th, and early versions of some of her novels were written before the turn of the century. Further, all the early formative reading she did was of 18th century authors like Frances Burney and Samuel Richardson. The association between Jane Austen and Frances Burney for me goes one step further--in George Knightley, Esquire, there is a cat named after a character from Evelina. So when I read someone's excellent review of Evelina, I rushed off to order it from the library.

It has, I believe, exceeded all my hopes. Evelina was written in the 1770s, and in the beginning I had to keep reminding myself of this, because all my Jane Austen associations were so overpowering. As I got further into the book, however, these associations receded--not because they ceased to be true, but because the book was so good I never thought of anything but the present story. 

The easy explanation of the plot is this: Evelina is the heroine, a naive but good and intelligent young girl, raised wholly in the country, who goes to London for the first time and embarrasses herself a lot. Because Evelina is so ignorant of town customs, she's the perfect person to point out their absurdities, and in this way the book is social commentary. There's also a question of her parentage, because her father is a cad who left her mother and claimed they weren't married, and the story surrounding this, when it is finally solved, sounds very much like something out of a play, full of misunderstandings. And of course, there is a love story.

I have never read anything written prior to Jane Austen, aside from poetry and Shakespeare, so I was not entirely sure what to expect from this. The novel is written in letters. I was surprised by how often the language sounded like Shakespeare, despite being written almost 200 years later. Certain phrases and modes of wit we associate with Shakespeare turned up here, none of which I've ever noticed in Jane Austen, 40 years later. Perhaps this is partly to do with Burney's writing style, or her choice of characters, or simply 40 years of language change. 

I found Evelina captivating, though I couldn't quite tell you why. It has a certain quality, in common with Elizabeth Gaskell novels despite myriad differences between the two writers, which makes it thoroughly satisfying. I loved it.

Latest reading

Now the library is open again my books are beginning to arrive. I've been meaning to get back to Lord Peter Wimsey, and I apparently don't own The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, so here's a library copy. The Neil Gaiman isn't from the library, but I took a fancy to reading some more of his writing and my lovely friend Beverly brought me a copy of American Gods. I've already started that one, and find it a bit odd but intriguing.

I can't remember whose review I read of Frances Burney's Evelina, but it was obviously such a good review that I rushed to order the book immediately. I've started reading already, and I'm quite enjoying it. I've been meaning to read more classics and more from the 18th century, so this satisfies both. The epistolary form is also rather pleasant. Evelina was written in the 1770s, and I keep having to remind myself that they're all dressed for the 1770s and not the 1810s, so I can definitely see why people consider Frances Burney when talking about Jane Austen's influences. I know I ran across mentions of Frances Burney a lot while reading about Jane Austen. It certainly is good to remember there were other women writing during this era. This Oxford World's Classics edition is really lovely, and it has lots of notes, most of which actually are necessary, unlike some notes I've seen.

So that's what I'm up to, aside from cleaning and packing for school. You'll hear what I think of Miss Hargreaves next week.