April favourites

We could go into a long, long explanation on how today is Book Day in Spain and girls get a book and a rose and boys just a book, but we'll leave it at that. It's a beautiful day when books are loved by one and all.

So this article came in quite handy for today.

The Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library system has declared 2006 the Year of the Reader. Each month the library is focusing on a variety of well-known authors - adult, young adult and juvenile - with bookmarks and displays of their books at all library locations.

Authors for April include Charlotte Bronte, the revered author of "Jane Eyre," the penultimate gothic romance. A new novel titled "The Bronte Project" caught my eye and turned out to be so good that I ended up on a fiction kick.

We commend the decision of having Charlotte in April. April is definitely a Charlotte-like month (if such a thing exists :P).

So, we will focus on two books Pam Locker - the author of the article - chose:

"The Bronte Project: A Novel of Passion, Desire, and Good PR" by Jennifer Vandever (Shaye Areheart Books, 2005).
Abandoned by her fiance and overshadowed in academia by a woman with a talent for self-promotion, a mild-mannered Bronte scholar finds herself beginning to question everything from her love life to her life's work. My take: Funny sendup of academia by a first-time novelist and screenwriter with talent.

We have talked a lot about this novel at BrontëBlog. The most recent mention was about the forthcoming paperback edition. (Remember you can read the first chapter online!).

"The Brooklyn Follies" by Paul Auster (Henry Holt, 2006).
When a retired life insurance salesman moves to Brooklyn to find anonymity and solitude, a chance meeting with his long-lost nephew sets change in motion. My take: I'm glad a customer recommended this talented author. He takes ordinary life and makes it extraordinary.

Okay, this book has a somewhat tenuous relationship with the Brontës. But still we mentioned it months ago for that reason. Click here and find out about it.

Anyway, here's wishing a happy Book Day to one and all! Give, borrow, lend, write, read a book today!

EDIT: Since this post is devoted to books already, we will add the review on The Observations by Jane Harris in The Independent:

Despite an obvious debt to Northanger Abbey and Jane Eyre, as well as the entire oeuvre of Wilkie Collins, The Observations triumphs in its own right as a vastly original, spirited piece of writing.

Don't you get a feeling that lately we are getting many novels set in Victorian times and compared to Jane Eyre?

Categories: Books, In_the_News, Jane_Eyre