Jeanette Winterson’s semi-autobiographical 1985 novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a novel that, according to Winterson herself, bookstores at first found difficult to categorize. When it first came out, they usually placed in the cookbook section. When it began to gain recognition as a “lesbian coming of age” novel, it was placed among the LGBTQ literature.… Continue reading Jeanette Winterson’s “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit”
Author: Jay Ruud
Edith Wharton’s “Age of Innocence”
Edith Wharton’s masterpiece The Age of Innocence won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1921, in just the fourth year of the prize’s existence. And she was the first woman to win the prize. But her award became controversial, not because of her gender, but because it was revealed that the three-man jury had initially voted to… Continue reading Edith Wharton’s “Age of Innocence”
W.H Auden’s “If I Could Tell You
Dave Malone’s “For a Limited Time Only”
Emily Dickinson’s “This World Is Not Conclusion”
Declan Ryan’s “Rope-a-Dope”
Dorothy Parker’s “Inventory”
Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow”
Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited”
By the time Evelyn Waugh published Brideshead Revisited in 1946, he had already published string of novels that established him as the foremost of British satirists writing between the wars. In particular, his Decline and Fall (1928), A Handful of Dust (1934), and Scoop (1938) were considered minor classics in this genre. But what was to come to be considered his greatest novel, Brideshead contained little in… Continue reading Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited”
Sarah Waters’ “The Little Stranger”
Sarah Waters is an author far better known in the U.K. than in the U.S. A Welsh author whose historical novels are often set in the Victorian period and involve lesbian protagonists, her books have thrice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and in 2019 she was named Officer of the Order of the British… Continue reading Sarah Waters’ “The Little Stranger”