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Elise

Elise

has 72 followers and is following 91 people

There's never anything to say about oneself.
  • We, Australia
  • member since September 28, 2009

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Elise’s last login was Wednesday, July 20, 2011.

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Public Notes

  • phil m

    phil m says

    Hi Elise. I just looked over your bookshelf. It resembles the bookshelves of elementary school teachers who like to read the books their students are reading. Or, are you a younger person who reads some more adult material like the Bronte sisters? I am a teacher, and perhaps you are, too!

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    I own a copy of "The Book Thief", but haven't read it yet. I loaned it to my Mother and need to go get it (She lives 400 miles away, however, so it might be a while). I am currently reading Stephen King's newest "Under the Dome", a big fatty (1107 pages). Actually, any Stephen King is easy reading, and about twice a year I let my mind rest by reading one of his. Any fifth-grader could read them and thoroughly grasp it, yet King as an ability to keep his readers turning the pages. I try to alternate between the classics and modern lit, and, as afore-mentioned, sometimes let my mind rest with a Stephen King or Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale is a good one if you've never read an Atwood). My two favorite classics are undoubtedly "Les Miserables" and "The Count of Monte Cristo", but "Hunchback of Notre Dame" is awesome too if the reader can endure the first 200 pages of complete boredom. Though Thomas Hardy can be grueling reading, I've read four of his five major novels, with "Far From the Madding Crowd" being my favorite and "Tess of the Rubberheads" being my least favorite (though for some reason it's the one that lit teachers always want their classes to study). I guess you could check my bookshelf for my favorites. I'll check your's, too :)

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    I just read the Wikipedia review of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. It sounds as if i would like it better than Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. Wikipedia said that at the time of its release critics said that it should never e placed into the hands of girls, and was considered scandalous. I love reading Victorian England's idea of "scandalous". Tom Jones-The History of a Foundling, was considered a nasty book in the late 1700s, but if they made it into a movie today it would be PG. Do we miss that world of puritanical ethics? Sometimes I think it would be nice to live in such a world, but then, people were shunned and abhorred for having feeling and motivations that were perfectly normal...not to mention being hanged for stealing a chicken!

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    Hi Elise, thank you for the info about Anna Bronte. I'll have to read her book (I didn't know about her). I have heard that Villette by Charlotte is as good if not better than Jane Eyre, and someday hope to get that one read, too. Something about Wuthering Heights was different from any other book. I must confess that it annoyed me (because of the way everyone cowered to Heathcliffe, then got sick and died), but at the same time I couldn't put it down. It was most definitely a weird love story, almost a horror story...I think younger girls like it better than older readers. I've heard women say that they adored Wuthering Heights as a high school/college girl, but as grandmothers they didn't like it. I think it's Heathcliffe's grief and insatiable passion for Cathrine that appeals to the younger women. I thought he was mean and cruel and I wondered what women saw in him. But again, I'm a man, and what man can grasp the heart of a woman. I'm having trouble getting into my current book. Not that it's bad (shallow, yes, but not bad) but I am learning some new guitar pieces these days and have been spending my spare time with guitars instead of books. I need to get back to reading.

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    Jane Austen was just too pure and sweet for my tastes. Oddly, I liked Jane Eyre buy Charlotte Bronte. Though Jane Eyre contained much of the same Victorian boredom as Jane Austen's novels, I liked the story much, much better. I thought Radcliffe was arrogant and harsh, so I couldn't understand why Jane loved him, yet Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights featured Heathcliff, who should have been poisoned by his entire household! I wonder what it was about the Bronte women that made them select such harsh arrogant men for the loves of their leading women?
    Wuthering Heights would have been better if Emily had paid Charlotte to edit the story (my unsolicitied opinion). I thought W.H. started with such promise, but Emily took the story in a direction that I couldn't appreciate.

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • Jassafari

    Jassafari says

    Thanx

    for the Frienship

    Jas

    What are you reading?

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    Thanks for the tip on "For the Rest of His Natural Life". I think I'll check that one out. I like reading about the many people who have been forced to struggle through conditions from which most of us have been kept safe. About Pride and Prejudice; After reading Sense and Sensibility I said to myself, "Well, I'll not dismiss Jane Austen too soon. Pride and Prejudice is her masterpiece so I'll give that one a shot." But after about 100 pages of P&P I thought "This is just as bad as Sense and Sensibility"and I quit reading it. So, I haven't read all of Pride and Prejudice. Perhaps I should because I hear that later on in the book Elizabeth got drunk at church and danced naked on the pulpit while the minister preached against lewd behavior. I also heard that Mr. Darcy punished her by selling her into slavery for two dollars shortly before he moved to America to become a Jazz pianist (but perhaps my sources are unreliable :) I know Jane wrote for the purpose of teaching proper ethics and to elevate the vocabulary of the young British girls who read her stories. But....I'm not a young British girl! I can only wonder if any 18th-19th century British girl ever dreamed of marrying for any other reason than to elevate her financial status?!?!

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    Oh, and thanks for giving a Jane Austen book only two stars. That's higher than I've ever rated one of them :)
    Most women love Jane, but I can only read the words Crumpet, tea, and estate two or three times before Im ready to move on to the next scene.

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    A new picture! A nice sundial in a green lawn! What's the small tree in the background? Michael Nyman is certainly talented but I have not heard much of his music. No, I'm not much of a fan of Jazz piano either. Could you recommend a good historic fiction that accurately represents the pioneering of Australia? Unless I am forgetting something, Shantaram is the only book I've read by an Australian author, and it was very good.

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    And sometimes the piano is more fitting than the guitar :) Tommy Emmanuel is the great Aussie guitarist. Who is the great Aussie pianist?

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    Ah, Piano; the classic feminine expression of European aristocrats. Excellent choice! Guitar is what American fathers force on their sons when the mother tries to buy the little boy a piano. (Smile!

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    Hi Elsie, I am trying to invite you as a shelfari friend! Are you getting the invitation?

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    Yes, I do love the amazing pictures of nature that reveal common scenes (like trees in a forest) in an unusual light or from an atypical angle. I have quite a few nature pics on my flash drive that I'd love to share. I wonder if shelfari has a "photo share" capability? There are some I'd like to show you...fresh water spring in Missouri, lightning through a tornado, Appalachian Mountain scenes of Autumn leaves, etc

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • phil m

    phil m says

    The picture of trees on your profile is magnificent! What is it? Did you take the picture?

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • Erin F

    Erin F says

    hey there havent heard from ya in a bit, been readin anything good lately?

    posted 2 years ago. ( send a note )
  • Erin F

    Erin F says

    haha yeah i hear ya :P

    posted 2 years ago. ( send a note )
  • Dana A

    Dana A says

    Hello!I have a cool group where we make a fiction diary of somebody in a problem and everybody in the group writes ti.Please join and help us make a great diary!

    P.S.I got the idea from you and put that in my message!

    posted 2 years ago. ( send a note )
  • Erin F

    Erin F says

    i actually went to a friends house that lives 3 hours away to celebrate the new year. i took them all their christmas gifts that weekend as well, so it was a lot of fun :)

    i believe i read part of it when i was in high school, dont remember much of it tho

    posted 2 years ago. ( send a note )
  • Embarr

    Embarr says

    I keep hearing that but I haven't gotten around to picking up a copy yet. I'll have to do that soon.

    posted 2 years ago. ( send a note )
  • Erin F

    Erin F says

    oh awesome! i cant wait to read the hunger games, ive been meaning to for a long long time!

    do anything fun for new years?

    i'm currently reading speechless by yvonne collins, it's alright, but nothing too great

    posted 2 years ago. ( send a note )

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