100 Follower Giveaway!!!

Hooray! It’s finally time! That’s right, my 100 Follower Giveaway is here :) Is anyone else doing a happy dance? No? Just me?

Anyway, if you’re a follower of this blog, the most awesomest blog in the whole wide world, now is your chance to win The Bronte Sisters, a collection of the three great classic novels: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte; Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. That’s 3 books in 1! Who wouldn’t want to win this?

So do you want to be well read just like me? Just enter my giveaway!

Requirements:

• Be a follower of this blog
• Have a US mailing address (I wish I could make this giveaway international but I’m sorry, I’m poor!)

What You Need To Do To Enter:

Simply leave a comment in this post stating:

• The email address with which to contact you if you win
• Your blog link (I’ll post it here if you win)
• If you follow me on Twitter, please say so and state what your Twitter name is (because sometimes it’s different you know) because if you do you’ll get an EXTRA ENTRY!

The Giveaway will run from RIGHT NOW April 8 – April 20, 2011 until precisely 9:00 CST. The winner will be picked at random and I’ll announce the lucky winner of the 3 in 1 prize on Sunday, April 24, 2011. So be ready!

Now go forth and enter my lovely giveaway. And be sure to spread the word as well :)

***P.S. I won't be responding to any comments in this post so if you have a specific question, please email me at llevinso.bookreader@gmail.com***

100 Followers Giveaway - It's Happening!

Alright, as the title states: it's happening. I went to the bookstore today and picked out the book I'll be sending to the lucky winner of my 100 Followers Giveaway. Are you all excited? Well you should be because I picked an AWESOME book! You ready?

It's The Bronte Sisters, a collection of three books, one from each sister: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte.

How great is that? Now the whoever wins can be just like me and read something from each sister! And really, who doesn't want to be just like me, right? And I figure this book is great for anyone because everyone likes at least ONE of the Bronte sisters.

The only thing I have to do now is actually get to 100 followers. I'm 11 away at the moment (damn you #89!). So help spread the word about my blog because the sooner I get to #100 the sooner I'll open up this giveaway and the sooner you'll have a chance to win win win (I say it 3 times because it's really winning 3 books, see?)!!

The day I hit 100 I'll post the rules for entering the giveaway, so be prepared and stay alert...it could happen at any moment...

Review for You - Agnes Grey

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
3 stars

This was the story of a young woman named Agnes Grey who, in order to help her family when they come under some hard financial trouble, decides to become a governess. She’s the youngest of two daughters in her family and has always somewhat been babied. They never let her help out much in any way so when she tells them that it is in her mind to become a governess they believe she will be in over her head. But Agnes believes she will be a great success and goes to work for her first family.

She quickly learns that this family, with all their wealth, is basically horrid. The boy likes to torture animals and won’t listen to anything Agnes says and the other children follow suit. They have not one redeemable characteristic. Try as she might she cannot get the children to learn almost anything and the family decides to go another way with their education after not too long. But Agnes is determined not to fail so she advertises for another situation and lands at another house. This family believes in instilling the idea that nothing should be too hard for anyone and the children (who are older than her first charges) should never struggle to find any answers. This results in them not really learning anything…again.

But Agnes sticks with this family for a few years and manages to find some nice aspects residing in the eldest daughter, Miss Murray, but very few indeed. And during that time she tries to correct the children’s horrible ideas when it comes to morality and basic goodness. However it does not really work because Miss Murray spends most of her time trying to trick men into loving her and then basically laughing in their faces, including the object of Agnes’ affection.

Agnes Grey was Anne Bronte’s first novel and also the first one of hers that I read. And I must say that makes me quite happy because I’ve now read something by every Bronte sister! While I did like this book for the most part I could certainly tell that this was her first novel. It had the feeling in many parts like that of a rough draft. It just wasn’t as well crafted as I would expect a full drawn out novel to be. I did notice that in comparing her to her other more famous sisters, Emily and Charlotte, she is much less dark and moody. This had a much lighter heart. It was also much more direct and to the point. Probably why the book was so much shorter than Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Anne Bronte did not seem to go on and on in the details of little things as they did. The one part she did get a bit carried away was talking about religion, but that was it.

However, I didn’t like the main character very much. I didn’t dislike her either but it seemed that she had a negative opinion of everyone aside from the members of her own family. It seemed as if she felt she was entirely too great and the rest were entirely too awful. The moralizing got a tad ridiculous and too much for me at times. It kind of seemed like a rich versus poor set up where all the people with money turned out to be wicked and that’s just not the reality and I don’t like it when authors portray things as such. I need shades of gray.

But for a first novel I would say it was pretty good. I didn’t hate it but I definitely didn’t love it. It was a very quick read though, so I definitely didn't feel like it was a waste of my time in any way. I’ve heard much better things about her second (and last) novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, so I’m excited to read that sometime in the future.

Bechdel Test Tuesday!

It's a kind of special week for the Bechdel Test here at the Sarcastic Female Literary Circle. How? I'm highlighting more than one book! For a quick overview of how the test works, check here. Oh, and for those of you that didn't catch my meme last week, it was on Kazuo Ishiguro's haunting tale: Never Let Me Go.

Alright, well I was considering making today's test an All Bronte Test (since I have now read something by all three Bronte sisters) but I have been struggling all day to remember exactly how Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte would apply to these questions and I'm at a loss. I know it had more than one woman but I cannot honestly remember what they talked about. So if you all have better memories than I do and can help me with the grade on that one, let me know in the comments!


But on to the other two sisters...


Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
1. Does it have at least 2 women in it?
It most certainly does. May I also just say this is my favorite book of all time so I'm REALLY pulling for this to pass...
2. Do they talk to each other?
Yes they do! Okay, two questions down. Just one to go. Can it make it?
3. About something besides a man?
YES! While Mr. Rochester and St. John are frenquent topics of conversation among the women in the book that is definitely not ALL they discuss. Morals, education, and their own thoughts and dreams are some of the other things the women talk about amongst themselves. So...

I'm so happy! :)


Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
1. Does it have at least 2 women in it?
This also has many women in it.
2. Do they talk to each other?
The book is actually mostly women talking to each other. Very few men.
3. About something besides a man?
Another yes! Again while men are certainly discussed it is just one of the topics. You'll hear about some of the others when I post my review later this week...

Well books are just passing left and right today!


So, this was a good day then huh? Let me know about Wuthering Heights in the comments if you can. What do you think of the Bronte sisters?

Books, Treats and Kitties, Oh My!

It's only 2:00 and already I've had the best day! Okay, so I woke up with a migraine (yup, I'm a migraine sufferer, anyone else? boy do they suck! I get about one a week) and it still hasn't gone away. And it's snowing AGAIN. And the temperature dropped AGAIN. And I have no idea when spring is actually going to arrive even though I'm trying to will it here by putting my sunglasses in my purse yesterday. IT WILL HAPPEN!


Anyway, it's still the BEST day because I just came back from the bookstore and bought a ton of books :) Now, as I'm sure most of you have heard, Borders have filed for bankruptcy, which means that tons of stores are going to be going out of business all over the place.

Well lot's of stores were already shutting their doors but now it's even more widespread. As much as it breaks my heart to see bookstores closing up (I really love them, I could spend hours upon hours in one), it is awesome because then I can get lots of books for discounted prices. Yay me!


I live basically like a retired senior citizen in that I survive on a fixed income. Thus, I have no money most of the time to buy fancy things like books. And, alas, it is one of my most loved things to do! So I survive by borrowing from the library (which in the last few months have started lending books at a snail's pace), downloaded free classics on my Kindle and stealing acquiring books from my parents' house. But store closings or special sales make my heart go pitter patter!


So today I hopped on the L and hiked over to the North and Halsted Borders(so all you folks in the Chicago area can do the same). The shelves were already pretty picked over but I found some gems.


To fulfill my love of classics I got:

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier - I've been wanting to read this ever since I finished Rebecca last year.

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte - It's the only Bronte sister I have yet to read, so I'm pretty excited. I also tried to find The Tenant of Wildfell Hall but they didn't seem to have it.

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald - I've only read The Great Gatsby by him so far and I thought it was very good if not infuriating. But when I picked this up the description seemed very intriguing. Like a lot of it could have been taken from his own marriage. So I'm in!

Then I moved on to a couple history books:

The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang - I actually found this while in the African History section (it seems the store was in a bit of disarray) because I wanted to find some more books about the Congo. But this has been on my TBR for a while so I figured I should pick it up while it was right in front of me and cheap. It's a horrible story of the rape, torture and murder of the Chinese village of Nanking by the Japanese army in 1937. I'm kind of afraid to get started to be honest.

How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill - I've heard mixed reviews of this one, but again, it was right in front of me so I figured why not. And I'm Irish so I need to start learning my own heritage right? But the title pretty much speaks for itself on this one I think.

Finally, I picked up a book that wasn't on my TBR, but looked really interesting. I found it while looking for the book Blindness, which wasn't there, and instead came away with something else by the same author:

All the Names by Jose Saramago - It's about a guy that basically lives a mundane life issuing birth and death certificates, things like that. Then he inexplicably becomes obsessed with the records of one anonymous young woman he happens across. He sets off to follow this thread of records to lead himself to her. Like I said, it sounded intriguing and I wanted to get ONE book that I hadn't heard of before that was totally new to me. This I decided was it. And the author is supposed to be great so I figure it will hopefully be a good enough choice.

So that was my best day! And I ended it with a trip to Starbucks to get a huge Marshmallow Dream Bar. Yummers :) Now I'm sitting here, all curled up on the couch with tons of books, my delicious treat and my kitty purring on my lap. Awesome.