Eloisa - Thanks for your book recommendations, as always. I complain about my TBR pile but I love finding all these great authors. I just finished reading Jane Austen in Scarsdale and I loved it -- next up is Me and Mr. Darcy.
Jane Austen in Scarsdale resonated with me because it wasn't so long ago I was going through the whole SAT/ACT, college application trauma along with my two kids.
My daughter ended up transferring colleges halfway through but had a good experience and learned a lot -- she graduated in December. My son was like some of the kids in the book -- a high achiever who only wanted to apply to the top schools (he didn't make it to Harvard, which was his stretch, but he did get in to U Chicago, his first choice).
My husband and I got married at 19 and never even went to college so the process was as new to us as it was to our kids. (I was in England with my husband the week I was supposed to start college and never looked back.)
I would have had a nervous breakdown if I'd read this book in the middle of my son's application process. Now he's on track for grad school at one of the best schools in the country so I was able to read Scarsdale with a smile of fond remembrance. Great book!
Two things:
1) The only minor detail I had a problem with was on page 195 where the author writes: "There were also the rock enthusiasts who insisted the Beatles were great poets and made a racket in the hall with their electric guitars." Unless they were hauling amps down the halls with them, those guitars wouldn't have generated much racket since they were electric.
2) If anyone else was as curious as I was about the poet Don Riggs who is mentioned on page 198, I found a book of poems that he edited here at BN.com; it also includes some of his own poetry.
Message Edited by becke_davis on
04-19-2008 01:13 PM
