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#18thcentury
review
swynn
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Pickpick

(2017) We think of reading as a solitary activity, but in eighteenth century England, reading was also a social one: families read together in the evening, friends read to one other, readers formed clubs to read aloud from novels, histories, and plays. William's study discusses the why, where, who, how, and what of reading in company and it's a fascinating world with very different habits of literary consumption.

Ruthiella A century later but Dickens is so good read out loud and I like to think of families of an evening gathering around to listen to the latest installment being read by a family member. 8h
MemoirsForMe Fascinating! 7h
swynn @Ruthiella I agree! As I was reading, I kept thinking about reading to my son at bedtimes, and how my parents read to us when my siblings and I were much younger. It's such a nice way to experience a book, and some books seem to be made for it. Why should it stop when you're old enough to read for yourself, I'd like to know? 2h
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blurb
swynn
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Interesting: the 18th century book market saw a demand for “miscellanies,“ collections of choice excerpts from longer works.

Some critics at the time were concerned about the ruin of culture due to the new generation's education through shallow excerpts instead of longer texts. Three hundred years later I share their concern, but maybe it's just history rhyming again.

review
rwmg
The Romance of the Forest | Ann Ward Radcliffe, Chloe Chard
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Mehso-so

While fleeing Paris, conman La Motte is forced to take under his wing Adeline, on the run from her father, who is trying to force her into becoming a nun.

Although the effects of scenery on people's moods are important all through the book, the author really goes overboard with the travelogue sections of vol. 3, apparently based on travel books of the time. This striving for geographical realism is odd given how unrealistic the people are.

AnishaInkspill it's so brilliant that you read this, I thought about it but remembering Udolpho didn't help, what's amazing is how popular these novels were in their own time. One day I will go back to Udolpho and maybe even read this. 2w
rwmg @AnishaInkspill I read Udolpho a very long time ago and found it quite tedious, but this has the advantage of being shorter. 2w
31 likes2 comments
quote
rwmg
The Romance of the Forest | Ann Ward Radcliffe, Chloe Chard
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blurb
rwmg
The Romance of the Forest | Ann Ward Radcliffe, Chloe Chard
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blurb
dabbe
Celestina | Charlotte Smith
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lil1inblue 🌹 💖 🌹 3mo
TheSpineView 😍😍😍 3mo
dabbe @lil1inblue 💙❄️💙 3mo
dabbe @TheSpineView 💙❄️💙 3mo
38 likes4 comments
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AroundTheBookWorld
Robinson Crusoe | Daniel Defoe
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All these things, with some very surprising incidents in some new adventures of my own, for ten years more, I may perhaps give a farther account of hereafter.
#RobinsonCrusoe #DanielDefoe #lastline #closingline #book #books #bookdesign #bookdesigner #bookdeal #bookdeals #bookdealer #bookdealers #bookdragon #bookdragons #bookfeature #bookfeatures #bookfan #Fiction #Classics #Adventure #Literature #HistoricalFiction #Novel #18thCentury #School 🧡🧡

review
swynn
Sicilian Romance | Ann Radcliffe
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Pickpick

(1790) Ear-read during a long drive, this is Radcliffe's second novel and packed full of Gothic tropes: an exotic location (Sicily! Land of hot-blooded lovers!); a large sprawling mansion with decaying disused maybe-haunted rooms where mysterious lights appear; secret passages, family scandals, star-crossed love, and lots of fainting and almost-fainting and bursting into tears. It's a lot of muchness, but it was a welcome traveling companion

Ruthiella I‘ve only read The Mysteries of Udolpho, but the heroine in that one cries and faints in every chapter, it felt like. 😂😭 4mo
swynn @Ruthiella I haven't read Udolpho yet, but ... yeah ... 4mo
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review
janeycanuck
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Pickpick

It‘s a #RandomClassics miracle! I finished Evelina!
I ended up restarting it a couple of weeks ago on a long hike with a different narrator and that made all the difference! I quite enjoyed this and I think I‘ll probably pick up a little print version sometime in the future.

TheAromaofBooks Yay!!! So exciting!! 😂 I enjoyed this one, but all the dreadful relatives/bickering just gave me secondhand embarrassment too much to really love it haha 4mo
38 likes1 comment
blurb
dabbe
Celestina | Charlotte Smith
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TheSpineView Lovely ❤️ 6mo
dabbe @TheSpineView 🩶🧡🩶 6mo
lil1inblue 💛 🌹 💛 6mo
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IndoorDame 💜💙💜 6mo
dabbe @IndoorDame 🩶🧡🩶 6mo
dabbe @lil1inblue 🩶🧡🩶 6mo
33 likes6 comments