The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Fiction - 5 stars

In this full-length novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville is said to have been caused by the gigantic ghostly hound which has haunted his family for generations. However, when Dr. Mortimer involves Sherlock Holmes in the mystery, Holmes characteristically dismisses the theory as nonsense. Claiming to be immersed in another case, he sends Dr. Watson to protect Sir Henry, the Baskerville heir, and to observe the suspects first hand. Mystery abounds in this story, and Megan and I thoroughly enjoyed Conan Doyle's deliberate use of character to keep the reader out of the loop. While it stands on its own as wonderful story, for its time, I can imagine that reading each chapter in The Strand was something for which people held their breath.  Megan and I both recommend it highly!
                       

 

The Call of the Wild and White Fang, by Jack London

Fiction - 5 stars

Megan presented three books for her book club to choose the one their next going to read, and White Fang was one of her three choices. While they did not pick that one to read, I decided to read it anyway, I got the combo of The Call of the Wild and White Fang on my nook, and I really couldn't read one without the other.

So, I began with The Call of the Wild, London's masterpiece about Buck, 1/2 St. Bernard, 1/2 Scotch shepherd who lives a comfortable life as a family dog in California. He's taken from his pampered surroundings and shipped to Alaska to be a sled dog. In Alaska, the landscape is as harsh as life itself during the gold rush of the 1890s. All but forgetting his earlier existence, Buck succumbs to his instincts, encountering danger and adventure as he becomes the leader of a wolf pack and undertakes a near-mythical journey, ultimately to answer the undeniable call of the wild. The details come from London's knowledge of Alaskan frontier life, and they make the writing exquisite. Once it was finished, I immediately began reading White Fang.

Although written much later, White Fang has often been called a companion novel to The Call of the Wild because it takes the story and reverses it. The story begins with a glimpse into the life of a wolfpack, hunting and finding prey often among the sled dogs of the 19th Century Klondike Gold Rush. White Fang's mother is part dog, part wolf, and when she and another wolf have puppies, White Fang is the only survivor.  Living in the frozen north, he learns to hunt in the wild, and then is "adopted" by Gray Beaver, an Indian living in a camp on the Mackintosh River. White fang is the alpha male, and he is well-known for his ability to strike dogs dead in an instant. When Gray Beaver enters Fort Yukon with White Fang, he is immediately noticed by Beauty Smith, a cruel man who manipulates Gray Beaver with whisky and gambling to gain White Fang as a debt payment. Beauty places White Fang in the dogfight ring where he is undefeated, until a pitbull is introduced and White Fang is nearly destroyed by the men's vicious cruelty. He is saved by Weedon Scott, and under Scotts care, White Fang is lucky enough to experience the one thing that can save him human love. He gradually comes under the spell of man's companionship, and when Scott returns to his family home in California, White Fang is is constant companion and eventually proves his worth to everyone.


I can't say enough about these books. I enjoyed them from the moment I began, and while the cruelty is hard to read, it gives a true glimpse into a period of history that many of us don't know about. People, as well as their dogs, had to be tough survivalists, doing anything to stay alive. Also, the adventurers who went to Alaska to seek fortune in the gold rush were not all peace-loving men. They were a mix of entrepreneurs and alcoholics, low-lifes and fur traders, businessmen and ex-convicts. London again had first-hand knowledge of these men, and depicts their lifestyle vividly in both books.

I love them both and recommend them to anyone who likes animals or is interested in the history of our country. 

The Gathering by Anne Enright

Fiction - 3.5 stars

As part of my personal challenge to read all Man Booker Prize-winning novels, I bought The Gathering on a whim.  Anne Enright won the Booker prize in 2007 for this work of James Joyce-like drama. In this portrait of a large Irish family, the nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan are gathering in Dublin for the wake of their drifter brother, Liam, who has recently drowned in the sea near Liverpool, England. Veronica, his older sister, goes to collect the body, all the while reliving the secret she shares with him—something that happened in their grandmother’s house in the winter of 1968. It is a novel about love, hate, disappointment, and how secrets and memories affect us until the end. While it is as well-written as Joyce, it is also as depressing and hopeless as Joyce, giving the book a truly Irish quality.

*Note: The Man-Booker Prize is the British award for literary fiction, similar to the Pulitzer in the US.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Youth fiction - 4.5 stars

May's Mother-Daughter Book Club book was a short, but somewhat deep novel about friendship and support set in 1970s New York City. While her mother is prepping to be a contestant on The $20,000 Pyramid, Miranda begins receiving a series of mysterious notes. While she doesn't immediately make sense of them, they are clues that her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time, may not be entirely far-fetched. She meets a series of friends, all the while trying to figure out why one friend has left her. the story comes together in the end, and Stead closes it up with a super happy ending.

That's all I'm giving away! One of Megan's book club selections was A Wrinkle in Time, and without reading it, this book would have been a little obscure. Overall, we really enjoyed it, and I would recommend it to middle schoolers looking for something a little deeper.