How to be a Heroine: Or What I’ve Learned from Reading Too Much by Sam Ellis

I have read this at least seveb times, it’s so addictively good, reading about someone who loves books so much as well as analyzing their influence, their subtle feminism and their failings. Of the heroines and the authors behind them. The memoir is again, personal as memoirs are depicting how these books have influenced her life, helped her deal with her epilepsy diagnosis, her future as a playwrighter and more. I plan to reread it again very soon, it’s just that good.

Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life by Sam Ellis

This book provides a lovely interplay between narrative story, memoir and research into the least well known Bronte sister who had a quiet strength and dark emotion in her novels that tend to be overlooked compared to the brooding Heathcliff and cold Rochester. Why is that? As Ellis analyzes, Anne portrayed this dark heroes not as romanticized love interests but for being the harsh, cruel men they woul be in real life, practically abusive. I enjoyed learning about Anne and she has made me her favorite Bronte for now. Even though I still prefer her sisters’ novels.

A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Elliot and Virginia Woolf by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeny

This is a cool book showing that despite the previous mythologies of these women dilligently writing alone by the windows, there is actually a lot more interplay and inspiration. Each of these women had fellow (less known) writer friends for which they could share their ideas, forming a mini community of writerly cameraderie. My favorite was the one between George Eliot and Harriet Breecher Stowe. Do check it out. It also features a forword by Margret Atwood!

Fiction

The Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogell

I highly suggest this eight book series following a group of unlikely friends from the beginning from sixth grade up to senior year graduation (though it skips 10-12 grade year). They all come together because their moms want to make a book club as a chance to bond. However, bookish Emma, shy Jess, fashionista Megan and sporty Cassidy loath the idea as any teenager does. But the book club does give them a bond as they find their literary counterparts offer more than entertaining stories but relate to them today. It covers the bond between mothers and daughters, the complexities of friendship, romance and growing up and I especially enjoy how she subtly copies the plots of the books they’re reading. It is especially pronounced in Pies and Prejudice but I’ll leave you to find out.

Shelf Life: Stories by the Book edited by Gary Paulson. Written by M.T. Anderson, Joan Bauer, Marion Dans Bauer, Ellen Conford, Margaret Peterson Hendrix, Jennifer L. Holms, Kathleen Karr, A. LaFaye, Gregory Maguire and Ellen Wittlinger

This is a ten story anthology for the charity, ProLiteracy Worldwide. The only condition is a book must be mentioned. 

As such a lot of the stories focus on the power of books as a source of knowledge, friendship, memory and escape. What else would you expect from a bunch of writers? 

I particularly enjoyed the subtle humor and nostalgia of Joan Bauer’s Clean Sweep and the jokester getting comeuppance in Conford’s In Your Hat. Same with Wittlinger’s ability to capture female friendship in Wet Hens and Dans Bauer’s Ths Good Deed. 

Anderson’s Barcarole for Papers and Bones was notable for its creepy atmosphere and ambiguity while Maguire brings his signature kookiness in Tea Party Ends in Bloody Massacre, Film at 11.

The others were okay like Karr’s historical tale in What’s a Fellow to Do? It takes place during the 1893 Chicago World Faire which is always unique. Haddix was the only other realistic fiction while Holm goes for sci-fi in Follow the Water, and the magical realism of LaFaye’s Testing, Testing 1…2…3.”