Frankly, My Dear, I Do Give a Damn: Why Reading Gone with the Wind is Such Fun
The first adult book I ever read was Gone with The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. It was also the second and third adult book I read because when I got to the end I could not let go of Scarlett O'Hara and so, just after the book finished with my beloved heroine plotting her next move, I flipped to the beginning where I met her again on the steps of Tara, plotting her next move.
I loved this book so much that I wanted to read every sentence and sometimes I read them more than once before I could move on to the next one. I read many of my favorite scenes four or five times: Rhett behind the couch at Twelve Oaks, the soldier stealing Miss Ellie's ear bobs, Scarlett helping Melanie as Atlanta was falling and the baby was coming. My favorite part was the first beginning, it set up the vast beauty of the two plantations, the juxtaposition of the races, the threat of the coming war, the tension between the O’Hara sisters, the importance of the relationship between Mammy and Scarlett, and the shear stubborn beauty that was Scarlett O’Hara.
A Brilliant Debut That Continues to Enthrall
Zadie Smith’s debut novel White Teeth chronicles the lives of two families in North London from the 1940′s through the 1990′s. The mild-mannered English office lackey Archie marries the beautiful Jamaican-Jehovah’s-Witness Clara and has a daughter; his war-buddy Samad marries the fiercely-tempered Alsana from his homeland, Bangladesh, and has twin boys. The narrative shifts viewpoints from chapter to chapter which gives the reader a deep insight into the unique characters and and how each alters his or her personality in relation to ever-changing family dynamics and to the world at large.
I read Barbara Bell’s debut novel Stacking in Rivertown thirteen years ago, and it grabbed me by the hair with both hands, dragging me through its pages. This is the story of Beth, a young, married woman whose recent success as an author triggers the fading of ‘amnesia’. As recollections of being held prisoner in a brutal S&M prostitution ring envelope her, she recounts the horrors she and the other captures endured, including being forced to perform in violent and tortuous plays for wealthy clients.
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