Reading and Roaming
WATCHING My Brilliant Career (Netflix) My Brilliant Career is a 6-part series based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Australian writer, Miles Franklin. Sybylla leaves her dirt-poor family and goes to stay with her grandmother, ostensibly to find a husband, but in her mind to experience more of the world and to become a writer …
Continue reading “MAINE MUSINGS: Unconventional & Mistreated Women”
SUMMER READING SIBLINGS IN THE POSTWAR DUTCH COUNTRYSIDE : The Safekeep by Yael Van der Wouden Published in 2024, The Safekeep was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and selected for many best-book-of-the-year lists. It’s 1961, fifteen years after the end of WWII, and Isabel lives alone in the house she shared with her parents and her two brothers, Louis older, …
Continue reading “Maine Musing: Two Novels & A Drama Series”
MILESTONE BIRTHDAYS Two of my siblings and the Chief Penguin have summer birthdays, one in June, one in July, and one in August. This year, this trio is turning 70, 75, or 80. It seemed the right time for a family celebration. The C.P. and I see the North Carolina relatives, my two sisters and spouses often …
Continue reading “Carolina Comments: Big Birthdays & Grantchester”
ON THE SMALL SCREEN The Other Bennet Sister (BritBox) Mary Bennet is the odd sister out. Very smart, but plain compared to her other sisters, she is harassed, berated by her mother, and oftentimes just ignored by her many siblings. In Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, she is viewed as having no marital prospects, while her sisters all gain …
Continue reading “Carolina Comments: Watching, Reading, Eating”
