It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. February’s starting point is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. The movie is getting terrible reviews - I enjoyed this quote from the Boston Globe:
Emerald Fennell’s overdone adaptation casts Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, Margot Robbie as Cathy, Alison Oliver as Isabella, and Hong Chau as Nelly. If you don’t know who those characters are, you should have paid more attention to your English teacher. The most positive thing I can say about the umpteenth version of this material is that it continues a grand tradition of cinematic literary adaptations. That is, students will fail the “Wuthering Heights” question on their final exam if they watch this instead of reading the book.
A few books stood out this month, including Radio Girls, about the early days at the BBC, and The Trap, the newest book about Emma Makepeace. I also enjoyed The Night in Question by Susan Fletcher, which follows what seems like a recent trend in senior citizen sleuths but features an appealing heroine who is both vulnerable and resilient. I couldn’t decide if I liked or disliked The Second Lady by Irving Wallace but I couldn’t stop reading! There were also some disappointments.
Florrie Butterfield has cherished her independence all her life, so losing a leg in her mid-80s was devastating. Forced to leave the cottage she loved, she found a residential community in Oxfordshire that accepted people in wheelchairs, Babbington Hall. But just as Florrie has settled in, things start to go wrong. When the story begins, she is mourning Arthur Potts, a friend who fell out a window and died four weeks earlier.
Title: Shadow Spinner
Author: Susan Fletcher
Narrator: Suzanne Toren
Publication: Recorded Books, 1999 (originally published by Atheneum, 1998)
Genre: Middle-grade fantasy/fairy tale retelling
Setting: Ancient PersiaDescription: Every night Shahrazad tells the Sultan a story, pausing at a suspenseful moment so that he is intrigued and lets her live another 24 hours to finish, at which point she proceeds to another cliffhanger.
