Psmith, Journalist by P. G. Wodehouse
Psmith ends up in New York. There, he helps take over a small periodical and turns it into a "popular" muckraking periodical. This helps them gain circulation, but the original owner is upset when he returns. There is plenty of British humor, but it can be a bit slow going.
Anne goes off to college. There are various challenges, but everything seems to end up well in the end. She and her friends want to rent a house together. They luck out and find a house that they liked available for rent. There are all sorts of boy issues and marriages. Anne tells a good friend that they can only be friends and then dates another guy. Two years later, when the other guy proposes to her, she turns him down and realizes the friend is best. There are also various romantic challenges, including with a couple that had to wait a few decades for a sick mother to die. It feels refreshing to read about relationships rather than "desire" in modern romantasies.
Mother Goose rhymes have become more sanitized over time. This collection of "classic" nursery rhymes goes back closer to the source. It is not uncommon for protagonists to suffer when they don't act properly. For some there have been improvements over time, while for others, this old version is best.
The book has some short poems with large illustrations as well as pages devoted entirely to poems. My kids grumble when we pull out the mother goose poems, so it takes a while to make it through. However, it finally grew on them towards the end.
Pollyanna Collection: Pollyanna and Pollyanna Grows Up by Eleanor H. Porter
This version of the first two Pollyanna books credits one of the same narrators from Librivox. I wonder if they just lifted it and cleaned out the librivox credits. Or maybe the narrator redid it. It is nowhere to be found on Amazon, though they do have the first two Pollyanna books separately. They both deal with the "glad" game. Pollyanna finds the good in everything and makes everyone happy.
Pollyanna
Pollyanna is the eternal optimist. Her parents have died and she has gone to live with her aunt (who does not like children.) Pollyanna sees everything positively. She even thanks her aunt for the punishments received. She befriends other people around town, including the man that will not talk to anybody. She brightens up everyone's day. Near the end, she gets into an accident and breaks her leg. One doctor says she will never walk again. This causes her to enter a funk where she can't think of positive things. Everyone in the town rallies around her and talks about how she had helped them and tries to help her. She gets out of the funk and then learns that she may be able to work. It is a very positive book.
Pollyanna Grows Up
Pollyanna goes to live with a rich lady in Boston while her Aunt travels. She struggles with the closed nature of the people in the city. However, she makes friends with some of the "street kids", much to the chagrin of the lady of the house. One day, she takes the lady to visit a cripple in a tenement. The rich lady wonders if this is her lost nephew. She also sees that the house is in poor condition and then seems to realize that she is the owner. She makes sure it is good. She later asks to adopt the boy because she thinks it might be her relation. He refuses because she doesn't truly care for him. Later she begins to care more for the poor kids and their abilities and he allows her to be adopted. Many years later, Pollyanna's aunt has come on hard times. They end up letting the rich lady and some kids board. There are some love triangles and pride of the crippled boy. Pollyanna's aunt refuses to let Pollyanna mary the boy she likes because he has an unknown pedigree. However, he opens documents to find he is the long lost nephew of the rich lady. It ends with a number of engagements and marriages.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The narrator of this audiobook, Ralph Cosham, would often narrate under the pseudonym Geoffrey Howard.
Gregor woke up one day and discovered he was a bug. It was just a "oh, I'm a bug and not human". He is slow getting out the door. His family and even his manager try to come and get him out. Later they learn that he is a bug. His sister is the only one that regularly attends to him. Others protect him but generally avoid him. He was a primary earner in the house, so his "bugification" creates some stress. Eventually, he fades from view. They clean out human furniture from his room to make it more comfortable. They send him food, but he rarely eats. His room gradually becomes a junk room. His family takes on tenants to make ends meet. Eventually, while his sister is playing violin, Gregor goes out to listen. This freaks out the tenants (who are neat freaks.) Gregor shortly after decides to give up on life and dies. The family acknowledges his passing and opts for some privacy from the tenants. Then they go on with their lives. They are somewhat relieved that they don't have to tend for him anymore. They can now move to a smaller apartment and live financially well with their new work.
This can be seen as part of a struggle of caring for somebody that has challenges. They may have changed to be different. At first you see them as who they are. Gradually they become more of a burden. Eventually, there is a relief when you no longer need to care for them anymore. There may be a hope they can return to how they were, but an exit is a more likely outcome.
Telling this story primarily from Gregor's view helps emphasize the changes that are made. He was not killed, he just gave up. He was capable of thought and realized his change. However, he could not do anything about it. He gradually adopted more and more to the life of a bug. Eventually he stopped eating and stopped living. The world and his family was not capable of giving him a life that he felt worth living. He couldn't provide it for himself either.
Gregor's sister was the one that had cared for him. She also played violin in a way that pleased Gregor, but not the tenants. The family barely noticed her until Gregor's pasing. Only then did they realize she had blossomed into a woman. The first thing they thought to do then was to marry her to somebody. Is this good or bad? Is it another form of control or more freedom?
[july 2009] Return of Tarzan is great escapist entertainment. Though it stands alone as a story, it is best to read after reading the first book (Tarzan of the Apes). The book reads like any entertaining summer movie, and has enough plot elements to fill at least a dozen films. Tarzan finds himself a french secret agent, an "Indiana Jones" gold hunter, an African King, and of course an "Ape Man". In all, he seems to posses just enough 'superhuman' ability and uncanny luck to get out of the most dire predicament.
The story is always quick paced, and exposes the early 20th century view of "Western European superiority" while at the same time being sympathetic to many of the "savages".
