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HOW TO BE A HEROINE

Name: HOW TO BE A HEROINE
Author: Samantha Ellis
ISBN: 978-1101872093

OR, WHAT I'VE LEARNED FROM READING TOO MUCH

by Samantha Ellis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

As Ellis shows in this charming, gracefully written memoir, literary heroines revealed to her new life stories, new selves...

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A literary journey to self-discovery.

Growing up in London in a family of Iraqi-Jewish refugees, playwright Ellis (Cling to Me Like Ivy, 2010) looked for models of courage and adventure and, she hoped, an escape from the future her parents planned for her: marriage to an Iraqi-Jewish man, children and a well-kept home. In this autobiography of reading, the author recalls the fictional characters she saw as heroines, including Anne of Green Gables; strong-willed Scarlett O’Hara; the elegant Anne Welles of Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls; and the consummate storyteller, Scheherazade. Louisa May Alcott’s Jo March “was fabulously rebellious” but disappointed Ellis when she married a German professor and gave up writing to run a school. At 12, Ellis loved Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet “for her muddy petticoats, her irreverence and her big heart. But mostly I loved her defiance of convention.” Until she switched her allegiance to brave, clever Jane Eyre, passionate Cathy Earnshaw, of Wuthering Heights, was the heroine she wanted most to emulate. “Back then,” Ellis writes, “I wanted my heroines to show me new ways to be, like heedless, selfish Cathy.” As a college student, she found a kindred spirit in Sylvia Plath and her protagonist, Esther Greenwood, of The Bell Jar. Dressing in black, wearing heavy eyeliner, Ellis decided to go to Cambridge, “where Plath’s poetry took off, and where she met Ted Hughes.” From Lucy Honeychurch, in E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View, she got “the idea of becoming an artist and living an artist’s life. It was because of her that I started writing plays.” Her first was inspired by Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, in which she identified with the angry Martha.

As Ellis shows in this charming, gracefully written memoir, literary heroines revealed to her new life stories, new selves and her own power to invent her life.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-1101872093

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Vintage

Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.