Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Favorite Heroines (or heroes, if you prefer!) but I am going to go off topic this week...again. I am currently listening to Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, so I thought that I would share classics I have read. I know that I should have read many more, but oh well. No guilt allowed right!
Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne - Listening to this now!
Les Miserable by Victor Hugo - What a massive undertaking this was!
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - I read this last year for Cook the Books and thoroughly enjoyed it!
East of Eden by John Steinbeck - There's several books on this list that I read thanks to Oprah's book club!
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald - I read this back in high school and then read it again 10 years ago.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - This was another Oprah read. I did end up going on to read and enjoy a number of his books.
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen - Still the only Austen I have ever read - Shocking I know!
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - I read this after reading Mr Pip!
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell - I did think about putting up the cover of the DVD of the BBC series as the picture here (hello Richard Armitage) but I restrained myself!
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - I really enjoyed this! Another Oprah read!
Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.
This month's starting book is Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason.
Sometimes when I am putting these posts together it is a somewhat random connection which jumps to mind. Other times there is an overriding theme which jumps to mind. This month it is a very simple theme! I am sure you will be able to pick it.
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
Once and Always by Judith McNaught
Shadows and Light by Anne Bishop
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
My theme was opposites!
Next month the starting point is Wintering by Katherine May
Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.
The starting point for this month is Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. When this was announced as the starting point I boldly declared that my starting point would likely be a different author that I know I should have read but haven't. Except...it's not.
Instead, my starting point is Everyman's Rules for Scientific Thinking by Carrie Tiffany because...rules.
My next choice is a different kind of science - cryptology - which is the science of making and breaking codes. The breaking of enemy codes during WWII is central to The Rose Code by Kate Quinn, one of my favourite reads of 2021.
Having pondered on the words rules and codes, I found myself thinking of the words of Captain Barbarosa from The Pirates of the Carribean
And when you start thinking along the lines of pirates, this leads me to Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown, which I have been reading recently. This book features a lady pirate who is sailing the seas, intent on revenge against those who done her wrong.
Bear with me while I do a litte hop and a skip to get to my next link! I was thinking about lady pirates and the scene that came to mind was from that iconic, so bad it's good, early 1980's movie, The Pirate Movie. This was based on the musical The Pirates of Penzance, and Penzance is in Cornwall
Now there are a number of choices that could be made for books set in Cornwall. Daphne du Maurier for is an obvious choice for starters, but instead I am going to choose Ross Poldark by Winston Graham. This is the first book in the Poldark series which was adapted for TV a while ago.
My next choice is also a period drama TV adaptation - North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Now I could share a book cover, but instead I bring you a gratuitous picture of Richard Armitage as Mr Thornton.
It's funny how often my direction changes while I am writing these posts. I start out mapping out the links nd then as I am writing the words around it, the choices change. Instead of going to a book with East in the title, I am instead going to choose Venetia by Georgette Heyer. Why, you ask? Because the abridged audiobook is one of my favourite audiobook experiences of all time. I have listened to it multiple times and still love it. And who is the narrator? Why it is Richard Armitage, which equals aural bliss!
Next month the starting point is No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. Heaven only knows where I will end up!
When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill-workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction. In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fused individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale created one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.
Earlier this year, I was introduced to the awesomeness that is the BBC mini-series version of North and South based on the book of the same name by Elizabeth Gaskell. After I had watched the DVD mini-series numerous times it occurred to me that I could, and probably should, read the book that it was based on. In due course, I went and purchased the book, but it then languished on my bookshelf for a while, until I realised that if I was going to lead a book-club discussion of it starting in June, then I really needed to read the darned book! And boy, am I glad that I did!
To give a very brief summary, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable existence as the daughter of country vicar when her father has a crisis of conscience and leaves the church. With no source of income, he moves his family to the northern industrial town of Milton where he is to teach and provide tutoring. One of his first students is mill owner John Thornton.
When Margaret and Thornton meet they tend to antagonise each other, with Margaret in particular being quite vehement in her dislike of Mr Thornton - a man who is not a gentleman in her eyes when she first meets him. Over time though, and through a series of rather dramatic events in the life of young Miss Hale and in the life of the town of Milton itself, she comes to see the very positive characteristics that 'these Milton men' possess. Poor Margaret has to deal with a lot throughout the course of this novel!
In many ways I think that this book was made easier to read by the fact that I had already watched the adaptation, particularly in the sections of the book where Higgins and the other mill-workers were speaking because Gaskell didn't shy away from using dialect that some may have found difficult to understand if they were being exposed to the story for the first time.
It was a real delight to find passages of dialogue that I recognised immediately where it was lifted straight from the pages of the book to the screen, and then it was equally as interesting to then rewatch the series and be able to quite clearly see which parts had been added by the scriptwriters and see what really added something to the story, what just added to the aesthetics because it looked really good, and also what was moved around or amended in the adaptation from word to screen.
One of the changes was in the ending of the book, and I have to say that for sheer romance the mini-series ending was superior, but the ending of the book was special as well, with a glimpse into how the two main characters would be able to share in mutual enjoyment and moments of humour as well as the fact that the ending in the book is probably more true to how a couple would behave at the time the book was set.
What the book was better at portraying than the mini-series was the build up in the emotions between our two principle characters, mainly because in a book you can get to know the inner thoughts and feelings which is much harder to do on screen. It definitely still happened on screen, but it was much more identifiable and palpable in the book.
If you didn't succumb to the North and South crusade that was happening earlier this year, I would encourage you to add the mini-series to your viewing schedule (and then come back and gush about how gorgeous John Thornton is), but if you don't want to watch it, then the book is definitely an entertaining read and is well worth the effort of reading. If I had to choose though, I would have to be honest and say watch the mini-series. The book was good, but the mini-series was superb!
What I have been thinking about since having seen this story in both the book and mini-series formats is what are my favourite scenes. The most obvious answer is the endings, but I must also say that the scene where Mr Thornton realises that 'it was her brother' also ranks right up there for me!
Given that I am talking about the mini-series you know that I really have no choice but to leave you with something to whet your appetite!
Having now read this book, and then rewatched the mini-series, I have now completed the Elizabeth Gaskell mini-challenge that I signed up for some time ago! I did mention a couple of posts ago that I was getting close to completion on some of the challenges that I had signed up for. This was one of those!
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