February was a good month for reading. The one I want to highlight this week definitely deserves its status as a well known classic:
REBECCA, by Daphne du Maurier
Ancient, beautiful Manderley, between the rose garden and the sea, is the county’s showpiece. Rebecca made it so — even a year after her death, Rebecca’s influence still rules there. How can Maxim de Winter’s shy new bride ever fill her place or escape her vital shadow?
I’d been worried that I wouldn’t get as much as I could out of this novel because I’d been spoiled for the Big Twist many years ago. I needn’t have been concerned — there’s a lot more to this book than the twist. It’s a subtler and more interesting book than it pretends to be. While it takes the form of a gothic melodrama in many ways, the purported hero is no falsely maligned innocent, and the purported heroine is so much less memorable than her deceased nemesis that she doesn’t even get a name to remember her by. Great book.
Other books I liked this month included THESE BURNING STARS by Bethany Jacobs, WITTGENSTEIN’S MISTRESS by David Markson, THE TWICE-DROWNED SAINT by C. S. E. Cooney, HEARTSTOPPER VOLUMES 2-5 by Alice Oseman, VESPERTINE by Margaret Rogerson, THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE PROFESSOR by Yōko Ogawa, GIRLS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD by Laura Brooke Robson, SILVER NITRATE by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, BLACK SAILS TO SUNWARD by Shelia Jenné, SPACEMAN BLUES by Brian Francis Slattery, and DRAGONFALL by L. R. Lam.
Ry Herman 