Precious Bane

Rating:
Summary: Ripe for pastiche
Review: Precious Bane is perhaps the archetypal rural romance - a genre which was very popular in England in the 1920s, and the best of its class. To tired urban readers of the late 1990s it will seem cliched - almost itself a pastiche of the genre. To me it is required reading, if only as a pre-cursor to the best pastiche of the rural romance ever written - Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm. (Aside - Why don't publishers think creatively sometimes and bind the pastiche along with the books being mocked? Northanger Abbey with Anne Radcliffe for example). Read it and laugh or read it and weep, but read it.

Rating:
Summary: Ripe for pastiche
Review: Precious Bane is perhaps the archetypal rural romance - a genre which was very popular in England in the 1920s, and the best of its class. To tired urban readers of the late 1990s it will seem cliched - almost itself a pastiche of the genre. To me it is required reading, if only as a pre-cursor to the best pastiche of the rural romance ever written - Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm. (Aside - Why don't publishers think creatively sometimes and bind the pastiche along with the books being mocked? Northanger Abbey with Anne Radcliffe for example). Read it and laugh or read it and weep, but read it.

Rating:
Summary: An Atlanta Bluestocking book club favorite
Review: The Bluestocking Book Club recently read and reviewed this one. Having almost disappeared from the shelves, it was restored by a university prof. If you know anything about the iconoclastic images of flowers and nature, this book is a treasure.The book starts out hard to understand due to its use of idiom and dialect, but as in taking a trip to any foreign country, it gets easier to understand as one becomes familiar with the territory. We loved it

Rating:
Summary: An amazing book
Review: This book takes one back to a day when the timeless values were often the subject of literature, and language held beauties we seldom see today. It is a deeply touching evocation of a long ago world as remote as Middle Earth or Narnia. The meaning of the title is not clear to me, whether it is Prue's deformity or the passionate devotion to materialism of her brother, but I rather lean to the latter, since his life is so utterly poisoned by his addiction. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A Precious Legacy
Review: This book takes one back to a day when the timeless values were often the subject of literature, and language held beauties we seldom see today. It is a deeply touching evocation of a long ago world as remote as Middle Earth or Narnia. The meaning of the title is not clear to me, whether it is Prue's deformity or the passionate devotion to materialism of her brother, but I rather lean to the latter, since his life is so utterly poisoned by his addiction. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: This book tells the story of Prue Sarn, a wonderful woman who is born with a harelip. But as the saying goes, you can't judge a book by it's cover.

Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: This book tells the story of Prue Sarn, a wonderful woman who is born with a harelip. But as the saying goes, you can't judge a book by it's cover.