There are sparks of genius sprinkled around the novel. I really enjoyed his characterizations, description of all the main characters, their power, & obsessions

Sarah Orne Jewett (3 September, 1849 – 24 June, 1909) was an author and poet known for her stories taking place in Maine.

Revenge of the Whale: The True Story of the Whaleship Essex, Adapted for Young People from In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick is an adaptation of the author’s more New York Times best seller history book. The book has been adapted into a 2015 motion picture, In the Heart of the Sea, which has not been received very well, but I think that now I’ll have to watch it.

Louis Auchincloss (27 September, 1917 – 26 January, 2010) was a novelist, historian, and essayist from New York

100 Parks, 5,000 Ideas: Where to Go, When to Go, What to See, What to Do – A travel book published by National Geographic about the American National Parks.

Article first published as Book Review: The Technologists by Matthew Pearl on Blogcritics. About: The Technologists by Matthew Pearl is a fictional book about the early days of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The story takes place in the years after the American Civil War during a very fragile time in our history. The pub­lisher is giv­ing away one copy of this book— enter at the end of the post. 496 pages Publisher: Random House ISBN: 1400066573 My rating for The Technologists – 4 Great price on this book in paper or electronic for­mat through the Man of la Book Affil­i­ate Account More books by Matthew Pearl Thoughts: The Technologists by Matthew Pearl (website) is an entertaining read with wonderful historical detail and a bunch of nerdiness thrown in for good measure. While I wasn’t sucked into the book as much as I would have liked, I found the characters captivating and the plot line interesting. The author does a great job interweaving reality and fiction as well as the dialog which was spoken in that time period. The harsh social norms of the time are presented in the form of a lone MIT female student who is forced to study in isolation. There were…

Turning the Screw…. Florence & Giles is an intriguing Gothic tale, well thought-out and deftly plotted. It owes much of its inspiration to Henry James’s ‘The Turn of the Screw’ and is a tribute to that classic story of misguided and obsessive madness. Set in remote and crumbling New England mansion, twelve-year-old orphan Florence is neglected by her guardian uncle and banned from any formal education as her absent uncle has strong opinions on the dangers of a clever woman. Ignored by the minimal staff of the house and left to her own devices, she finds the abandoned library, teaches herself to read and devours books in secret – she appears a resourceful and intelligent young heroine. Keeping her self-taught accomplishments a secret from all, she considers them her own personal triumph, seeing herself as literary and articulate against all the odds. She insists on narrating her own story in a language of her own invention. This contrived language is a little awkward to get used to. Her insistence on turning nouns and adjectives to verbs and verbs to nouns “no budgery was to be had. I was in a weepery of frustration” – can rather grate and irritate at first, but…

Next to Love by Ellen Feld­man, it was a very enjoyable, well written and unique book. Ms. Feldman was kind enough to answer a few questions I had