Books which I'm reading.

I'm reading Terror and Wonder The Gothic Imagination published by The British Library section by section. I'm also reading Writing Historical Fiction A Writers and Artist's Companion published by Bloomsbury Academic bit by bit.

I'm also reading Bittersweet by Colleen McCullough about the lives of two pairs of twins who train to be nurses in the 1920's. The Lady (Magazine) caption is: "A novel of love, loss and betrayal - think of Scarlett O'Hara and multiply by four." I disagree, the characters are not as compelling as Margaret Mitchell's famous heroine. I'm half way through it and losing interest. Part of the back blurb reads "from the author of The Thorn Birds, one of the biggest-selling books of all time, comes this sweeping saga of love and betrayal and redemption in 1920's Australia.

'As clever and compelling as its four heroines.' Australian Woman's Weekly.

Half way through the novel my problem is that with four heroines and a cast of other characters important to the novel I am not identifying with them sufficiently to care what happens to them.

I wonder what other readers think of Bittersweet.

Terror and Wonder

I went to The Gothic Exhibition at The British Library and bought the book: Terror and Wonder, The Gothic Imagination. I am very amused by an illustration in it of an 1802  lithograph by James Gilray, printmaker and caricaturist. The inscription reads; 'This attempt to describe the effects of the Sublime and Wonderful is dedicated to M.G. Lewis Esq".  The caricature is of 'four spellbound women poring over a copy of Lewis's collection in a bourgeois parlour room, with a copy of 'The Monk' placed on the table. The women's faces express their horrified reaction to gothic tales of terror and wonder.