A charming, well-researched journey to “Austen-land.”
A fresh, spirited look at the beloved author by a self-proclaimed “Janeite.”
British historian Worsley (Maid of the King’s Court, 2017, etc.), chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, is steeped in the world of Georgian England, where Jane Austen (1775-1817) lived, wrote, and set her novels. In a biography as brightly entertaining as it is erudite, the author offers a richly detailed portrait of Austen, her various homes, and her social context. In what she admits is a “crowded field” of Austen biographies and critical studies, Worsley takes a wry, sometimes-irreverent perspective, grounded in a deep knowledge of Austen’s fiction; letters to, by, and about her; and seemingly every bit of scholarship, criticism, and biographical inquiry relevant to her. Although her sources are abundant, there are still gaps, and Worsley occasionally resorts to “would have,” “might have,” and “it is easy to imagine” as she narrates Austen’s life. Nevertheless, she is so reliable a historian that her speculations seem well-founded. She reads Austen’s correspondence with uncommon empathy, discovering “dense detail of domestic life” in letters that some biographers have dismissed. Investigating Austen’s possible suitors, Worsley cautions against treating her subject “like just another modern person, reacting to the situations in exactly the same way as the writer would him or herself.” An 18th-century woman might have far different feelings about romance, she argues; Austen, she believes, had a series of suitors, one of whom proposed marriage. Austen accepted him only to change her mind the next day. Her writing career had a slow start, but Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813, garnered “terrific sales” and strong reviews, becoming “a wild, noteworthy, enviable success” that buoyed Austen’s confidence and made her a celebrity among her neighbors. Worsley gives sharply drawn pictures of domesticity in the many homes that Austen inhabited, including her family’s rented houses in Bath and residences where she, her widowed mother, and sister visited as guests before they settled in Chawton, a site of pilgrimage for Janeites.
A charming, well-researched journey to “Austen-land.”Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-13160-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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