カテゴリー: Fiction British

★★★★☆ One of the most banned books in English literature. She's not only a mere woman of pleasure, but she gets rich! A free and lively woman who gets rich, yeah an enemy of the decent society.

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Fanny Hill
Memoirs of a woman of pleasure
John Cleland, 1749
176 pages
Read 2024.5


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
One of the most banned books in English literature.
It took a while to properly start reading it, but for me it’s excessive.
That is the point of this book as it’s said to be the first pornographic novel, but, less descriptions would have made the book more interesting, to me, but obviously that would reduce the charm and the meaning of this book.

One of the critics says the writer is a homosexual, because of the obsession with the description of male bodies, yes it’s obsessive compared to that of female bodies.
Well, it was written centuries ago so it must have been shocking, that the women find pleasure without any regret or shame!
Normally these femme fatale stories end with the woman regretting her past, or getting punished.
Take Lolita, she is made to be happy by settling in the countryside as a wife (while Tanizaki’s Naomi continues with her life style, that’s what makes Tanizaki great)
Here, Fanny does not regret, but not only that she even gets rich, such a bad ass enemy of the (patriarchal ) society.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Immortal Classics) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Memoirs Of Fanny Hill

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Fanny Hill. Memorie di una donna di piacere (Italiano)

★★★☆☆ A little book about boyhood, growing up, London and rock'n'roll.

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Gabriel's Gift
Hanif Kureishi, 2001
196 pages
Read in 2020.06

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

A little book about boyhood, growing up, London and rock'n'roll.

I wanted the brilliantness of My Beautiful Laundrette, but here there's only the ode to pop culture and music.

It's a fairytale, of a modern and urban, specifically London, family life seen from a boy's perspective whose parents were living rocknroll lives knowing rocknroll people back then. 
Which, in itself perfectly likeable if you are into it, just that I'm not familiar with that vibe.
 

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Gabriel's Gift

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Gabriel's Gift

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Il dono di Gabriel (italiano)

★★★★☆ Jack Reacher series. Explosion of adrenalin. Murder, violence, good women, all the cool elements but not much story, but maybe that's not what's expected in the "hard boiled" - it's an action movie in a book.

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Killing Floor
Lee Child, 1997
525 pages
Read in 2025.02


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The first book of Jack Reacher.
It was recommended by someone ages ago, and didn’t realise it was that Reacher.
I think it’s better in movies/TV, it’s got actions, excitement and adrenaline.

Killing and violence and good looking women. But not much story, not much tangling up of people’s melodrama, that I always seek and love.
The only interesting character was Finlay, the chief detective who actually had a story to tell.

Good ol’ hard boiled action thriller, that rightly Tom Cruise played.
It’s not that it’s not good, it’s just not my type, but maybe it gets better as it develops.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Killing Floor (Jack Reacher) Mass Market Paperback

Amazon.co.uk (UK)

Killing Floor: The first Jack Reacher novel in the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling thriller series (Jack Reacher, 1) Paperback

Amazon.it (Italy)

Killing Floor: 1 Mass Market Paperback


Zona pericolosa Paperback – Big Book

★★★★★ Second Myrthali book. The first was more physically challenging and about finding his stronger self, and the second is more about doubting, the scenes are darker.

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The Dream-Pedlars Parade
Mark Bowsher, 2025
594 pages
Read 2025.04


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Second Myrthali book.
The first was great, and this second one is even better.
As it was suggested, this is certainly darker, and it makes sense as Krish has grown up since his first adventure.
The first was more physically challenging and about finding his stronger self, and the second is more about doubting, the scenes are darker (also literally, it’s the endless nighttime) and the protagonist more mature.
Must say, I simply love that his partner came back!

I love the fact that the story background subtly challenges the “typicalness” – his own race (though importantly, this is not a story of “a journey of an Indian boy” it is a “journey of a boy who wants to save his mother”) or that disability of some characters are clearly stated, and it quietly challenges the gender stereotype, as well as other stereotypes like age or ability, without making it about it.

It’s full of imagination, I’d say more than the book 1, it is rather long-ish being over 500 pages, but doesn’t feel like it, it’s full of thoughts and actions… and well, we’ll all have to wait for the book 3!

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Dream-Pedlars' Parade: Book 2 in the exhilarating Myrthali series

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●

The Dream-Pedlars' Parade: Book 2 in the exhilarating Myrthali series

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●

The Dream-Pedlars' Parade: Book 2 in the exhilarating Myrthali series

★★★★★  Ishiguro's stories always have some subtle sarcasm and slight malice of seemingly "normal" kind people. Here you get some madness. It's quiet but it squeezes out our bad intentions we'd like to hide.

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A Pale View of Hills
Kazuo Ishiguro, 1982
183 pages
Read in 2025.02


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
His debut novel. Actually they just released a Japanese film based on this book as I write this post.

As always his books are both so Japanese and so English at the same time and there is nobody else in the world who can write with this mixed sentiment.
His stories are always slightly twisted with a hint of evil of ordinary people.
Here there’s a small madness of Sachiko and her daughter always hanging in the air, while everyone else is perfectly polite, but all slightly selfish. Brilliant, I mean that’s how we all are, aren’t we.
The struggle of loss and the post war, past and present. Women with regrets. Women trying to close their past, Etsuko trying to come to terms with her past.

True, like Etsuko the narrator says, memories are not reliable. Her memories are vague, for her sanity, to comfort herself. And what is wrong with that, she hurt herself enough, she struggled enough.

A book by Ishiguro, always a pleasure to read. They are quiet, but they squeeze out who we are deeply inside.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

A Pale View of Hills Paperback

Amazon.co.uk (UK)
A Pale View of Hills: Kazuo Ishiguro Paperback

Amazon.it (Italy)
Pale View of Hills Paperback - English


Un pallido orizzonte di colline Paperback

★★★★☆ It demands you to keep reading. Kids "seeing wrong people" and become extremists. A Muslim dad whose life turned upside down but would still run, to save his daughter. Adrenaline full throttle. A page-turner.

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Hunted
Abir Mukherjee, 2024
468 pages
Read 2025.05


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Action movie type of book.
Parents chasing after their each of their kids before police catch them as they're "misled" to join terrorist actions.
Police officer who is also a mother also joins the chase from her own perspective.

Probably the most interesting character is the father, Sajid.
A Muslim dad whose life turned upside down but keeps running for his daughter. 

But I was right to pick this as a partner of the long flight. A page-turner.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Hunted: A Thriller

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●

Hunted: Discover the new pulse-pounding, twist-packed thriller

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●

Hunted: Discover the new pulse-pounding, twist-packed thriller

★★★★★ As always his stories are sad. Not too dramatic but subtly and surely sad. Artificial Friends; are they friends, or pets or toys? Surely not just things?

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Klara and the sun
Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021
307 pages
Read 2024.5


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
As always his stories are sad. Not too dramatic but a bit sad.

Artificial Friends are there, maybe a bit like pets, puppies, except they are things, regardless of their intelligence.

A lot happens around her but we only see it from her point of view.
So we’re not able to see the intention behind the actions from human.
Are they selfish?
Maybe not so much, it’s just how things are, and for us how things will be soon.

She has her mission and asks the Sun for guidance and eventually in order to pursue she is willing to be violent simply because that is her mission.
So is she a threat? But really, it seems like she’s the only one to remain innocent, or “human”

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Klara and the Sun: A GMA Book Club Pick: A novel (Vintage International)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Klara and the Sun: The Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year 

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Klara e il Sole (Italiano)

★★★★☆ Small book of 2 short stories. 2 very different stories but I liked the second one with the mum. My first Nick Hornby.

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Otherwise pandemonium
Nick Hornby, 2005
64 pages
Read 2024.5


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
2 short stories.
I think it’s the first Nick Hornby book.
It’s entertaining, the first one is a bit of Sci-fi but I preferred the second one, “Not a star” where a mum finds out her son’s secret but the family is eventually alright and she actually appreciates the effects it brought.
Nice little stories.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Otherwise Pandemonium (Pocket Penguins)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Otherwise Pandemonium (Pocket Penguins)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
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★★★★☆ A fiction based on Japan's most mysterious unresolved case from 1949. Nostalgic and mysterious like Japan and hardboiled-cool like America. You too will catch "Shimoyama disease".

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Tokyo Redux
David Peace, 2021
480 pages
Read 2024.5


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
What is “Shimoyama case”?
It’s a fiction based on Japan’s most mysterious unresolved case from 1949.

It’s full of masculine romanticism, throughout Japan’s Showa era, basen in Tokyo that everyone fantacises.

Nostalgic and mysterious like Japan and hardboiled-cool like America.

As they say, you catch “Shimoyama disease”.
The writer is not Japanese, but precisely because of that it is good and is such a page turner, I now need to find the other 2 of the trilogy.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Tokyo redux 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Tokyo Redux

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Tokyo Redux (English)

★★★★★ How to humiliate a rich guy and to marry him in the end. What a girl. It's such a classic that it's difficult to find a love story that's not influenced by this.

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Pride and Prejudice 
Jane Austen, 1813
367 pages
Read 2025.01

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The classic of the classics.
The story is well known, but it is true the humour in the dialogues makes this the “best loved book”
So very English, both in the lifestyle and humour.
The characters are lively, the story simple but curious and anyone can easily engage with it.
It’s so iconic that it’s now difficult to find any love story that has no reference to this book.
I should also watch the movies properly one day.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Classics) Paperback

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●

Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen (Penguin Clothbound Classics) Hardcover – Illustrated

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●

Pride and Prejudice Paperback – English edition


Orgoglio e pregiudizio - Paperback

★★★★☆ Classic of classics. Mr. Crusoe is so English. He's tidy, proud and concerned, and determined to make this barbarian land his home (English style home, of course) 

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Robinson Crusoe
The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
Daniel Defoe, 1719
384 pages
Read 2024.6


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
This was a period I was reading as many “classics” as possible, and here it is.

It’s amazing how English the protagonist is.
He’s so well organised and no compromise to make the island his (English style) home, and he doesn’t hide to show how proud he is.

This is supposed to be one of the first story written as if it was a biography in spoken English, and indeed many thought it was a biography, a diary.
Because of the historical background you cannot get away from the discriminations but within the boundary he made a sincere friend of Friday.
Today’s reader would be uncomfortable, and when recommended to kids I hope there’s a note mentioning it.

Whether you like it or not, you’d have to conclude that it is a great story, written 300 years ago, and still read today.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Robinson Crusoe: The Original 1719 Edition (A Daniel Defoe Classic Novel) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Robinson Crusoe

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Le avventure di Robinson Crusoe (Italiano)

★★★☆☆ Two middle aged men who had loved a same woman, and their friendship, if you can call them “friends”. So dark so English.

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Amsterdam 
Ian McEwan, 1998
224 pages
Read 2024.6


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I think I got it from someone, that's why I had it in Japanese.
Not a long story, of 2 middle aged men who had loved a same woman, and their friendship, if you can call them "friends".
So dark and so English.

It'd have been different if I read it in English, so it's my fault I put less stars.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Amsterdam: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Amsterdam: Ian McEwan

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Amsterdam (Italiano)

★★★★★ A beautiful story told in a cruel and violent environment; war and colonisation. They must cling to little happiness or sadness that are their own. By a Nobel prize winner.

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Afterlives
Abdulrazak Gurnah, 2020
288 pages
Read 2024.7


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A beautiful story told in a cruel and violent environment; war and colonisation. 

It's a reminder that people's loves get messed up by the external horrible business of war, like African lives affected by wars that are happening in Europe, "nothing to do with us" 
But importantly, their lives can continue they can have little happiness or sadness that are their own, they must cling to them.
And a little magical and personal relationships with the coloniser and colonised makes the story hopeful, despite the violence that's surrounding them.

BY THE WINNER OF THE 2021 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Afterlives: A Novel 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Afterlives: By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Afterlives: By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021

★★★★☆ It’s stone cold and stylish and stylised, but has the human struggle of the protagonist. And of course clever.

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The spy who came in from the cold
John Le Carré, 1963
464 pages
Read 2024.7


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
So this is the famous spy book.
And I admit I have almost zero interest in this genre it didn’t draw me into it as much as it should or could but it was a good story that you van easily imagine it being made into films.

It’s stone cold and stylish and stylised, but has the human struggle of the protagonist. And of course clever.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold: A George Smiley Novel (George Smiley, 3) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold: John le Carré: 61 (Penguin Essentials, 61)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
La spia che venne dal freddo (Italiano)

★★★★★ Remembering the past, remembering the regrets and hoping for a bright content future. Classic Ishiguro here, perfectly capturing the Japanese sentiment. Elegant.

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An Artist of the Floating World
Kazuo Ishiguro, 1986
206 pages
Read 2024.7


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Remembering the past, remembering the regrets and hoping for a bright content future. 
Classic Ishiguro here, with an old man as the protagonist, perfectly capturing the Japanese sentiment. 

He revisits and reviews his life as he gets old, old enough to have others around him die, and slowly sees his mistakes of being too nationalistic, though that was the norm, and for his daughter's sake he acknowledges the mistakes.

Slow and elegant and all you expect from Ishiguro.

Nobel prize winner

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

An Artist of the Floating World

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
An Artist of the Floating World: As heard on BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Un artista del mondo fluttuante (Italiano)

★★★★☆ Midlife crisis. Mr. Polly was tired, he wanted to change his life but too tired to try any more so he decided to end it all… that’s when his good life really started.

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The History of Mr. Polly
H. G. Wells, 1910
Herbert George Wells
318 pages
Read 2024.10


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
It was mentioned in the mid life crisis book (my review here), and yes it is exactly about that.

You have a boring life, you don’t make decisions but things just get decided and time passes and one day, you want to end it all.
You want to “change it” but you are so tired that you just want to end it – but THAT is when the life starts again.

The first half of this book is boring to read because his life was boring, but weirdly when he tries to end it the words in the book also gets more exciting and enjoyable, just as he enjoys the view of the countryside – then comes the tranquility of life, satisfaction, of letting it all go.

It was worth reading the boring bits because that is life, it’s unpredictable.

Also worth knowing that the author is actually a popular SF writer.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The History of Mr. Polly

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The History of Mr. Polly

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
The History Of Mr. Polly (English)

★★★★☆ It’s the struggle we all go through, especially if you are a mother, imagining that you are a victim. I sacrifice my life for the family, I prepare everything for you so you don’t have to make a mistake.

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Absent in the Spring
Agatha Christie, 1944
Mary Westmacott
UK
Read in 2020.04

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Agatha Christie writing as Mary Westmacott.
I didn't really know about this when I read it, though it's not a crime story, the brilliance of her writing is there.

On her way back from Baghdad, she thinks back about her family.
It's the struggle we all go through, especially if you are a mother, imagining that you are a victim.
I sacrifice my life for the family, I prepare everything for you so you don't have to make a mistake.
Her husband is kind so he lets her do her way, that is, do what she thinks he wants, which is, what he really wants.
But that, is her happiness.

 

🔽 Related pages 🔽
tag

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Absent In Spring

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Absent in the Spring

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Absent in the Spring: A Captivating Historical Novel of Self-Discovery by Agatha Christie, Written Under the Pseudonym Mary Westmacott―Perfect for Summer Reading (English)

★★★★★ In the room, nothing seems to be happening but in their heads their worlds are turning. Things that happen in the day seem like unrelated but they are within their consciousness. Story about her mind ready to explode.

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Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf, 1925
240 pages
Read 2024.10


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
My first ever Virginia Woolf.

As expected it was a hard read, in terms of the timeline it happens all in a day, but in the meantime the main characters think and remember a lot – ”Stream of Consciousness”.

It’s very internal, this is continuous flow of what they are really thinking while the time passes, and what they think is a lot more than what it appears in the very English society.

Nothing really happens in the day, but a lot happens in their heads.

(warning; revealing a bit of the plot, but I assume it’s well known after 100 years)
Clarissa is at the verge, she’s physically unwell but holds it together, very well aware of potential mistake of letting go the man she truly loved but also her duty as a wife. and Septimus, who had little to do with the party until his name is mentioned, had been at the verge and he eventually crosses the line.

By showing his death and his tension that was accumulated to the point of death, the book shows the nervous environment, or the consciousness of Clarissa, of what seems to be a boring, pretentious evening.
Definitely must read more of her books.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Mrs. Dalloway: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf (Wordsworth Classics)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
La signora Dalloway (Italiano)

★★★★☆  You’re in Havana during the Cold War, you are a boring ordinary man who sells vacuum cleaners but somehow you become as a British spy. Soon things go out of hands, for the government. Exhilarating, fun read.

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Our man in Havana
Graham Greene, 1958
UK
256 pages
Read in 2023.07


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Strange little spy comedy novel that's also a perfect story.
You're in Havana, Cuba during the Cold War, you are a boring ordinary man who sells vacuum cleaners but somehow you become as a British spy.
To keep up with your daughter who spends all your money in creative ways, you don't want to lose the income but it all goes haywire.

It's both unbelievable and believable, some misunderstanding here and exaggeration there, who is there to deny his reports? I mean why not have fun while they are at it, let the man ridicule the authority and get away with it.
His love for his daughter, what else would you need if you have her?

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Our Man in Havana

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Our Man in Havana (Vintage Classics)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Il nostro agente all'avana (Italiano)

★★★★★  Mary Shelley had a bet with 2 men to see who’d write the best horror story, thus this world famous horror story written by a 18 year old girl. But it is not about how evil the monster is, it’s more a sad story about this lonely unwanted creature.

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Frankenstein
Mary Shelley, 1818
Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus
224 pages
Read in 2020.12


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

One of the most famous horror stories is not only about horror.
And it must be specified, written by an 18 year old, a teenage girl, Mary Shelley.
While on a holiday, she had a bet with 2 men, a poet Byron and a writer Polidori, to see who would write the best horror story - what a luxurious game.

It's poetic, it's sad, it's I'd even say beautiful, painfully beautiful.
It's about two men, who both regret the monster's existence - one is the creator and the other the monster himself.
The monster is monstrous simply because that's his nature, not his willing. 

If you are only used to the movie or cartoon versions of it, it's definitely not as you fancy the story of Frankenstein to be.
It's not pure evil, it's not that simple and it's not really about how monstrous he is either.; it's more a sad story about this lonely unwanted creature.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Frankenstein

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Frankenstein (italiano)

★★★★☆ Her wish to go outside, into the unknown world – that’s something she must suppress because she’s a wife, a mother. A wonderful storytelling, a story of her mind, by one of the greatest.

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Unfinished Portrait
Agatha Christie, 1962
Read in 2022.05


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Agatha Christy that doesn't involve murders or crimes - in fact she used her pseudonym, Mary Westmacott.

The book is about about the inner emotions of the sensitive protagonist who is now thinking to commit suicide.
After a happy childhood with her family, she was supposed to have a happy family life with her husband.
Her wish to go outside, into the unknown world - that's something she must suppress because she's a wife, a mother.

A wonderful storytelling, a story of her mind, by one of the greatest.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Unfinished Portrait

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Unfinished Portrait

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Ritratto incompiuto (italiano)

★★★★☆ In a quiet town all women got pregnant, but the babies only like each other, with their bright eyes and unusual senses. Uncomfortable, feels too real.

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The Midwich Cuckoos
John Wyndham, 1957
240 pages
Read in 2022.12


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Recommended by a friend, so no knowledge of the story or the author, and it was subtly weird.
Maybe I've never really read sci-fi books consciously, so I can't really compare with other books in the genre but it is a mild but certainly worrying sci-fi.

In a quiet town, one day they all fell unconscious, when they woke up women were pregnant, all at the same time.
Soon the babies are born, not looking like their parents but like each other, with their bright eyes and they become worryingly strong, smart and connected to each other.
Who, or what are they? 
What do we do? What is the right thing to do? How do we stop?

It's uncomfortable and definitely worrying because it feels too real.

Once upon a time, our enemies were aliens or some obvious external factors.
Good ol' days.
Now we need to he scared of us humans. 

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Midwich Cuckoos

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The Midwich Cuckoos

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Il villaggio dei dannati (italiano)

★★★★★ Has all the juicy stuff, mainly romance, but it has the themes of coming-of-age, feminism, religion, gothic, class, race/colonialism, anything. She’s a woman who says no. How dare.

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Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte, 1847
624 pages
Read in 2026.01

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

It's always pleasantly surprising to find many of the classics are entertaining, but then, it does make sense, if it was boring or merely difficult, it couldn't have been loved for centuries. 

Jane Eyre has all the juicy stuff, mainly romance, more romance-y than I had imagined, but it has the themes of coming-of-age, feminism, religion, gothic, class, race/colonialism, anything that reflects the life in the north of England in early 1800s.

You can easily imagine why there was a huge criticism when it came out - a woman who doesn't obey? A woman who says no? All with her plain childish looks? How dare.

But today we of course see it differently. 
She's a cool independent woman, she doesn't want her man to shower her with expensive stuff, she wants an equal relationship, only when she's sure that she can also be helpful, does she accept.
She knows how to forgive, she knows how to be useful in practical ways, and she grows and glows.

The matter of the madwoman in the attic is also an interesting point. 
Pretty clearly a typical racist view of the time; indicating her to be of the mixed race, thus a black woman, therefore she is irrational and violent, must be kept away from the white civilisation. 
Also the madwoman haunts Jane, but Jane doesn't seem particularly to hate her, despite everything she represents and does?

Gripping, and surprisingly entertaining with difficult themes tangled up.

 

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte (Penguin Classics) 

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Jane Eyre (italiano)