Review: CHARLOTTE BRONTE: A FIERY HEART, by Claire Harman

Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart, by Claire Harman. Published 2016 by Knopf. Nonfiction. Biography.

Award-winning critic and writer Claire Harman portrays the author of Jane Eyre as an introverted genius devoted to her craft and her family in this novelistic and deeply satisfying biography.

I don't read a lot of biographies, but when I do it's usually because I'm already a fan of the person being written about, so you'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to leave me dissatisfied. In other words, the chances of me not liking a book about the author of one of my favorite novels are pretty slim. That said, I did love Harman's new Brontë biography, which covers her entire, short life, from birth to the start of her life after death.


Harman portrays Brontë's family as close and inwardly-focused, dominated by the paterfamilias Patrick, a minister with a temper and a tight rein on his five children Maria, Branwell, Emily, Anne and Charlotte. Charlotte was very close to all of her siblings and a biography of her is in large part a biography of this family. Maria died too young to be a part of the creative hive that the remaining four developed later, which continued until Anne and Emily passed within months of each other. Branwell's story is also tragic, his life lost to alcohol and addiction and a hopeless and scandalous love affair. Charlotte's career was bumpier than I realized, even after the success of Jane Eyre, and she remained haunted by a failed love of her own, until she married and briefly settled down until her premature death in her mid-30s, possibly, Harman tells us, due to complications related to pregnancy.

Charlotte Brontë is absorbing read that held my attention completely; I read it at the gym so it was competing with a lot of ambient noise and I could only read it 45 minutes at a time, but I actually started working out more so I'd have more time for it. It's a treat to hear Brontë's voice through her letters and early writing and to learn about Brontë family, especially her father and sisters. Emily in particular seemed like someone with a rich interior life. Brontë's relationship with Elizabeth Gaskell, also an important Brontë biographer, is a big part of Brontë's adult and professional life. I'd recommend the book strongly to fans of any or all of the Brontës, or for anyone who likes a good character-driven novel. It would make a great brainy summer read.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from Knopf.

Review: THE GIRL WHO LOVED CAMELLIAS, by Julie Kavanagh

The Girl Who Loved Camellias, by Julie Kavanagh. Published 2013 by Random House. History. Biography.

As much social history of 19th century France as a biography of the life of courtesan Marie Duplessis née Alphonsine Plessis, Julie Kavanagh's book has romance, glamour, high society, low life, and tragedy. Much like the life of its heroine, Kavanagh's book is short and interesting and just a little sad.

Marie Duplessis, as she came to be known, was the woman on whom Alexander Dumas fils based his book, La dame aux camélias, or The Lady of the Camellias, a book that was adapted for the theater, the opera, the ballet, and the screen. The book came out in 1848, a year after Marie's death at the age of 23. While she lived, she enjoyed wealth and an enviable position in Parisian demimonde society, the lover of many prominent men and a woman respected, to a degree, for her own intelligence and love of literature and learning.

You might not think there would be so much to say about the life of a courtesan (read: prostitute) who died so young, and you wouldn't really be wrong, but Kavanagh manages to string a pretty interesting book out of Marie's story, which is as much about the social and economic life of Paris in the 19th century as it is about one woman and her lovers. Personally I have always found that time and place fascinating. So much great literature and art came out of the period, and it had such an influence on modern life. European and American society was transformed; revolutions and economic shifts created the world we know today. And somewhere in all of that flux were the lives of women who enjoyed considerable economic power for the first time.

Now, granted, that power came at a price, and prostitution at the level at which Marie practiced it had its benefits but we have to be careful not to glamorize it too much. So it's important to read The Girl with a slightly critical eye. I still think it's worth reading if you're interested in the period or in French social history more generally. Prostitution at her level was an established part of Parisian life and she was only one of many women who lived this life. Kavanagh tells Marie's story with energy and good documentation; a glance at the bibliography shows histories, memoirs and novels of the period as her sources. She has a chapter on her sources at the end, and an introduction explaining why we should be interested in Marie's life in the first place with an emphasis on the longevity of her life's story in multiple art forms. It's definitely an entertaining read, a history book for the beach bag. The sad part for me is that even though she died young, she would not have had much to which to look forward had she lived. Her life may have seemed enviable in some respects, but like many women in her position, it was more doomed than it was ever charmed. Kavanagh's book doesn't quite shout that message, but I think it's there anyway.

Rating: BEACH

FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for review.

REVIEW: After Gandhi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance, by Anne Sibley O'Brien and Perry Edmond O'Brien

After Ghandi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance, by Anne Sibley O'Brien and Perry Edmond O'Brien. Published 2009 by Charlesbridge Books. Nonfiction. Biography. Young Adult.

After Gandhi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance, by Anne Sibley O'Brien and Perry Edmond O'Brien, profiles sixteen world leaders who practiced nonviolent resistance to various political regimes in the twentieth and early twenty-first century, beginning with Mohandas Ghandi in 1908 Johannesburg, South Africa, up to protests against the Iraq War in America. It is aimed at 9-12 year old children and is illustrated with black and white pastel artwork.

Authors Anne Sibley O'Brien and Perry Edmond O'Brien have selected a pantheon of leaders from all over the globe- the reader goes from South Africa to Vietnam, to Alabama, Belfast, Prague, Beijing and more. There are names likely to be familiar to many readers, such as Muhammad Ali, profiled for his protests against the Vietnam War, and Desmond Tutu, the South African priest, and names likely new to many readers, such as Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi and Charles Perkins of the Australian Aboriginal Rights Movement. Nelson Mandela is profiled as much for his nonviolent resistance to his prison conditions as for his anti-apartheid activism, which, the authors acknowledge, wasn't always exactly non-violent in nature. They provide a brief biographical sketch of each leader and discuss their activities in terms of what each leader gleaned from Gandhi's teachings. For example, they discuss how Cesar Chavez employed the hunger strike to help gain better working conditions for migrant laborers. This analysis helps build a picture of activists of different stripes and working on different issues, learning from each other to build a better world.

The authors use clear, age-appropriate language and an attractive presentation style to communicate with their readers; the illustrations add texture and interest, but I would have liked to see a photograph or two here and there. Since the purpose of the book is to encourage young people to engage in social activism, and the authors are activists themselves (as shown in the Authors' Note at the end), the authors don't even pretend to be objective and that's fine as long as the reader knows what he or she is getting into. The book also contains an annotated bibliography and index to help young readers find source material and reference specific topics in the text.

After Gandhi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance would be a good choice for families and libraries looking to add to their collection of social-justice nonfiction. I'm debating whether or not to include it the collection I manage, mainly because none of the activists profiled are Jewish (the Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, for example, would have been a great choice to profile alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks in the fight for racial equality in the United States) but the book would be fine addition to many collections nonetheless.

Rating: BACKLIST


FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher.