Epistolary Novels
Sep. 8th, 2012 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisEons ago - I think I was a teenager - I read a novel titled 84 Charing Cross Road. It was wonderful. To this day, I can remember passages and scenes in it while I cannot remember even the name of the great book I finished last week. The story is told through a series of letters from a woman in America to a bookseller in London. I loved the story and the format.
I love the format. It's so compelling and there is just something so delicious about reading someone else's mail.
The book I'm reading now - Where'd you go, Bernadette is about a MacArther Genius grant winner who married a Microsoftie and transplanted from LA to Seattle and hates it and drives a skewer through every single bit and piece of it - hilariously.
But, while the story, itself is great, it's told mostly through the letters, emails, notes and faxes of the characters which makes this good book great.
I was telling Chef Anita about it and when I explained the format she immediately said "ah, epistolary!"
I had never in my life heard that word but I was thrilled to have it. Hello, Google...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contemporary_epistolary_novels
This list is great. I had only read a couple. I went through the Google Play bookshop and downloaded the previews of a bunch of them. Now I don't feel quite as tragic about getting to the end of Bernadette.
I love the format. It's so compelling and there is just something so delicious about reading someone else's mail.
The book I'm reading now - Where'd you go, Bernadette is about a MacArther Genius grant winner who married a Microsoftie and transplanted from LA to Seattle and hates it and drives a skewer through every single bit and piece of it - hilariously.
But, while the story, itself is great, it's told mostly through the letters, emails, notes and faxes of the characters which makes this good book great.
I was telling Chef Anita about it and when I explained the format she immediately said "ah, epistolary!"
I had never in my life heard that word but I was thrilled to have it. Hello, Google...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contemporary_epistolary_novels
This list is great. I had only read a couple. I went through the Google Play bookshop and downloaded the previews of a bunch of them. Now I don't feel quite as tragic about getting to the end of Bernadette.