Between the Pages

SUMMARY Dr. James Sheppard is a (the) well-known doctor in a wealthy town called King's Abbott. Dr. Sheppard wakes up on this particular Friday morning to a normal day (is there really such a thing as a "normal" day in the life of a doctor?) - his sister Caroline spilling out all of her most recently acquired gossip while he sips tea or coffee over a light breakfast. But, Dr. Sheppard's day doesn't stay normal. Mrs. Ferrars - a citizen of the extremely small town - has died. Sheppard is sent to give her medical attention, but he was too late.  One of Dr. Sheppard's best friends in King's Abbott - Mr. Roger Ackroyd - was seeing Mrs. Ferrars before her ultimate demise. As the amateur sleuth he is, Sheppard goes to pay a call at the biggest house in King's Abbott: the Ackroyd residence. Upon his visit, Sheppard is immediately ushered into Ackroyd's study where he is informed that Mrs. Ferrars was being blackmailed. Perhaps Caroline was right when she ...

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are amazing. They are my favorite short stories and my comfort reading (you all KNOW what I mean). Please read them and enjoy! Comment your favorite story below.  BTP's copy is from Barnes and Noble. Click here  for more information. 

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is an interesting and disturbing tale about mankind's dual identity and how it may be brought by science.  PLOT SUMMARY Soho, London. Victorian Era. Mr. Utterson is an upstanding lawyer who hangs out, drinks, eats, and smokes with his other upstanding lawyer and doctor friends, two being Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll.  One night, as the novel opens, Mr. Utterson walks along with his friend Mr. Enfield when they pass an old dilapidated building. The site of this erection sparks Enfield's memory, and he tells an eerie story. One night/early-morning, Enfield was out on a stroll through Soho on his way home when he sees a young girl gets knocked over and trampled on by a short, portly fellow. The man runs ahead, but Enfield and a couple others catch him by the collar and make him apologize to the girl's family and give reparations. After the encounter, the short man heads into the same dilapidated building Utters...

Dracula by Bram Stoker is truly horrifying and a classic EVERYONE should read.  Summary Johnathan Harker is off on business. He always has a plan, Except, this time he doesn't. His mysterious business associate has not given him any direction. Johnathan Harker travels to Transylvania to meet his host. Instead of a professional, businessman, Harker is greeted by a seemingly mythical, ghastly white-haired and skinned man. Count Dracula, or the Count for short, terrorizes the town below the cliffs of his lair. Throughout Harker's time at the castle, he is almost killed from scaling the castle windows' ledges, three ghost women who cackle and try to suck the blood out of the veins in his neck, and the Count himself.  Meanwhile, Harker's fiance, Mina Murray, is with her beloved friend, Lucy Westenra, in Whitby. Lucy starts having dreams and sleepwalking. One night, Lucy sleepwalks to a misty churchyard where Mina spots a ghostly figure on a bench next to an extremely pale Lu...

I have been waiting for so long to do this. Here, dear readers, I give you my official review of Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Even though this book has been a star of this blog and been in numerous posts over the years, I have never done an official review; until now. Without further adieu, here we go! Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is a tale of romance, cynicism, satire, and human vanity. It will continue to be read over and over throughout history by high school English classes, book clubs, and thesis writing graduate students. Why? Because of its relevance in any time period and obvious message that can be applied to each and every reader's life.  Summary  Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have their Longbourn House full in Georgian, England. With five daughters, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia, Mrs. Bennet has her hands full getting them all suitable husbands (but if you ask me, she just wants to get them all married off so that she can look superior to Lady Lucas, their ...

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle delivers a truly chilling Holmes and Watson tale. This book is the literary embodiment of Halloween. The setting is the most important and well written part of the story.  Summary The Hound of the Baskervilles  by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a truly harrowing tale. It has the best setting of any mystery novel I have ever read. It is almost horror because of the setting. The Moor and the Grimpen Mire are described with death and dark imagery.  Holmes and Watson meet Sir Henry Baskerville, the next in the line of inheritance for the famous Baskerville estate. The land is not famous for its beauty, however. Every Baskerville that has ever lived on it has perished by the infamous Hound of the Baskervilles. The baronet does not think the Hound really exists, but enlists the help of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson after receiving threat letters and being followed through London before he was to take abode on the estate. Mysteriously, without telling his inte...

J.B. Priestly's play on one family's responsibility for the suicide of Eva Smith shows how small action can lead to large consequences in the lives of others.  Summary The Birling family is celebrating the engagement of their daughter, Sheila. She has just been betrothed to Gerald Croft, the son of Sheila's father's business rival. This is a merging of families and a business treaty. As soon as the Birling family and Croft clink their glasses together in celebration, the maid enters the dining room and announces an police inspector calls. As soon as Inspector Goole enters the Birling residence, the house becomes hushed, panicked. Inspector Goole reports the suicide of Eva Smith, former employee of Arthur Birling. It is revealed over the course of the night that each family member has a suspicious amount of involvement in the young woman's life.  Review I loved this play. I have read 4 plays this year (this one along with "A Midsummer Night's Dream", ...

Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men  is a story of weighing responsibility for actions that follows two opposites: Jack Burden, the protagonist and narrator, and Willie Stark, power-hungry Governor of Louisiana in 1940.  Summary Jack Burden works for big-shot, powerful, bull-headed Willie Stark, Governor of Louisiana. Jack grew up at Burden's Landing with his mother, the Stanton kids: Anne and Adam (the former Governor's children), and Jack's rich, powerful mentor and father figure Judge Irwin.  Willie Stark is a truly self-made man. He studied law on his own, passed the BAR on his own, and won the race for governor with the help of his campaign staff (which includes Jack). Stark grew up in rural Louisiana, but is outgoing and always  gets what he wants. Willie, or The Boss to Burden, often asks Jack to "dig-up some dirt" on certain people in the political realm in order to get what Willie wants, whether that's funding, support, or cooperation. But...

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a true science-fiction classic where the importance of books and individual thought is at stake and fought for. This blog's purpose is to fight for books' importance in the minds and hearts of young women; thus, this book is a must read for readers of this blog and all.  Summary Guy Montag is a fireman. In Montag's society, firemen burn books so that citizens cannot think for themselves. Instead of bookshelves dominating rooms, television walls close in residents. No one is ever alone. 24 hour programs and radio runs all the time. In order to sleep, people take sleeping pill after sleeping pill until their heart goes to sleep and their blood must be re-pumped, except "It's routine." and "It happens all the time." The truth is never told. People dance around the facts. Suicides are common and often overlooked, deemed as coincidences. Every house looks the same. All of Montag's days run together, as he gets up, go...

    The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is regarded as one of the "great American novels" and one of the best pieces of literature to embody the 1920s, post-war society, and aristocratic hypocrisy.  Summary 29 year old, Nick Carraway is a WWI veteran moving from a midwestern childhood to an east-coast adulthood. He moves to Long Island's up-and-coming neighborhood for the young and rich. His bungalow is smashed between West Egg, the new money neighborhood on the Sound, mansions. One of his neighbors is the glamorous Jay Gatsby who has loved Nick's married cousin, Daisy Buchanan, for five years. Daisy is married to Nick's Yale classmate, Tom Buchanan, who is a physically large man with a macho personality that entertains a love affair with Myrtle Wilson in New York. The Buchanans marriage is not necessarily a happy one, but neither East Egg resident will spring for divorce.  Carraway starts attending Jay's frequent parties and befriends Gatsby. Throughout t...

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick is regarded as one of the eeriest novels of the 20th century. Dick's novel explores how different the world can be with the winning of a war.  Summary It's 1962 in the continental United States, except the US was divided between the axis victors of World War II fifteen years earlier: Germany and Japan. Slavery is once again legal. FDR was assassinated and replaced. Africa is being stripped for its natural resources and human bodies by Germany. The Japanese occupy the Pacific states and the Reich (Germany) occupies the western territories called "The South". All searching for the truth in their individual lives, Dick introduces A LOT of characters into the readers realm.  Robert "Bob" Childan owns an antique store filled with "American" artifacts and attempts to put the pieces of the American story back together on the Pacific side. Childan is contacted by Mr. Tagomi, a powerful Japanese business associat...

Jack Worthing leads a double life. He's Uncle Jack to his ward, Cecily Cardew and her governess, Ms. Prism at home in Hertfordshire. He "visits" his imaginary "brother," Ernest Worthing, in the city from time to time. He pretends to be Ernest, so he can party. His friend, Algernon Moncrieff, uses his fake "brother," Bunbury in order to have an excuse to relax in the country. One day, Algernon comes to visit Jack, but they are confused to be the same person: Ernest (Jack's "brother"). Both men use fibs to get dependent women to fall in love with them, but their secrets are revealed by the end. A surprise is revealed about Uncle Jack's identity that is wonderful irony.  Oscar Wilde's hilariously presented play is in three Acts; all poking fun at Victorians and all ironically wrapped up into a delectable package that screams intrigue.  This play is a true classic. It uses humor that makes you feel smarter. I loves this play! Its witt...

by Sandra Cisneros PLOT SUMMARY Esperanza, the protagonist, is about twelve years old at the novel’s opening. She lives in a small Chicago community where most inhabitants are of Latin descent. Her house is situated on Mango Street; however, Esperanza would hardly call her abode a house. While the house is much better than her previous place, the dwelling is a small flat with crumbling brick and mismatched materials. In this small apartment, Esperanza has no space specifically dedicated to her. Cisneros’s dreamt-up neighborhood creates the perfect, cramped lifestyle in which Esperanza is forced to turn to her neighbors for experiences, new thoughts, and inputs: good and bad. Esperanza quickly makes friends with Rachel and Lucy who enter puberty right along-side her during this year in Esperanza’s life. The group of friends, plus Esperanza’s tag-along kid sister, Nenny, explore the neighborhood and have many adventures including wearing high-heels around town, buying a bike...

The Old Man and the Sea The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway is a story about an old man and his quest to kill a big fish and change his bad luck in fishing forever. Plot Summary: Santiago is an ancient fisherman living in Havana, Cuba. He is not terribly rich to put it nicely. (He is very poor.) Santiago is a grandfather figure and teacher to Manolin, a young man in the village that has fished with Santiago for quite some time. Manolin must stop fishing with the old man because he parents deem Santiago bad luck because he cannot catch even one fish. Santiago must change his luck or he will be in this never-ending cycle of bad luck and no fish. Santiago hooks a fish one day; it is a big fish. Once this fish is hooked, he is not dead. The fish barely even notices the hook; therefore, the fish keeps swimming. Being the stubborn man that he is, Santiago decides not to let go of the line and keep the boat going with the fish. Read The Old Man and the Sea to find out wh...