Yesterday, the first Saturday of November, was National Book Lovers Day, at least according to some calendars anyway. So let’s look at a few of our good-book-to-curl-up-with options.
The classics have be revisited by many authors and in about as many different ways. Here are a couple of classics retold with a horror twist, just in time for the Halloween season.
Pride and prejudice and zombies : the classic Regency romance — now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem!
by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.
I think the first sentence of the book describes this adaptation of the classic very well – “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
According to the book description ”A mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton–and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy.”
Little women and werewolves
by Louisa May Alcott and Porter Grand.
This is the original text of Louisa May Alcott’s classic, the first draft, before the editor altered it . . . according to the back cover anyway. At the beginning this uncensored version, it includes a letter from the editor to the author telling her to try again. This time without the werewolves.
Here is another way to honor the classics, by picking up where the author left off. The following two books are both mysteries set after the events of Pride and prejudice.
Death comes to Pemberley
by P.D. James.
It is 1803, six years since Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on their life together at Pemberley, Darcy’s magnificent estate when Pemberley is thrown into chaos after Elizabeth’s disgraced sister Lydia arrives and announces that her husband Wickham has been murdered.
North by Northanger, or, The shades of Pemberley : a Mr. & Mrs. Darcy mystery
by Carrie Bebris.
This book is actually the third in the Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mysteries series, the first two beingPride and Prescience and Suspense and Sensibility. North by Northanger brings the Darcys into contact with the characters from another of Jane Austen’s books Northanger Abbey.
From the book description — “Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy retire to the peace and quiet of Pemberley as they await the birth of their first child. Such tranquility, however, cannot last.”
Splintered : a novel
by A.G. Howard.
Splintered and its sequel Unhinged are both recent additions to the library’s collection of young adult classics with a twist. Alyssa is the great-great-great-granddaughter of the famous Alice who told her strange dreams to Lewis Carrol, inspiring his classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now Alyssa must travel to a very real Wonderland to right the wrongs done by her ancestor.
Cinder : a Lunar chronicles novel
by Marissa Meyer.
Another young adult book, Cinder is a very different sort of Cinderella story. “As plague ravages the overcrowded Earth, observed by a ruthless lunar people, Cinder, a gifted mechanic and cyborg, becomes involved with handsome Prince Kai and must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect the world in this futuristic take on the Cinderella story.”
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West : a novel
Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire’s Wicked is a very well-known book with several sequels and even a Broadway musical based on it. It tells the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in a way that L. Frank Baum never imagined. But it isn’t the only twisted tale that Maguire has given us. He also retold Snow White and Cinderella in Mirror Mirror and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.
Just remember while you’re curled up in your favorite chair reading whatever book you’ve chosen, that Daylight Saving Time ends today and to set your clocks back an hour.
Leave a Reply