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The Heroine's Bookshelf

Life Lessons, from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

The literary canon is filled with intelligent, feisty, never-say-die heroines, and legendary female authors. Like today's women, they too placed a premium on personality, spirituality, career, sisterhood, and family. When their backs were against the wall, characters like Scarlett O'Hara, Jo March, Jane Eyre, and Elizabeth Bennet fought back—sometimes with words, sometimes with gritty actions. Their commonsense decisions resonate even more powerfully in a world where women are forced to return to the basics, paring down and shoring up their resources for what lies ahead.

In this compelling book of beloved heroines and the remarkable writers who created them, Erin Blakemore explores how the pluck and dignity of literary characters such as Scout Finch and Jo March can inspire women today. She divides these legendary characters into chapters that pair each with their central quality—Anne Shirley is associated with irrepressible "Happiness," while Scarlett O'Hara personifies "Fight." Each chapter includes insights into the authors' lives, revealing how their own strengths informed their timeless characters. From Zora Neale Hurston to Colette, Laura Ingalls Wilder to Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen to Alice Walker, here are some of the most cherished authors and characters in literature.

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 4, 2010
      Marketing consultant Blakemore finds that in moments of struggle and stress she revisits her favorite childhood women authors and their plucky heroines for respite, escape, and perspective. Jane Austen, who broke off an engagement and threw away her last chance at a respectable marriage, poked fun at polite society and its expectations of women in her novels, and she created a self-assured, self-respecting protagonist in Pride and Prejudice's Lizzy Bennet—who also doesn't need a man to complete her even if Lizzy does get a rich, handsome husband in the end. As Blakemore pushes against the boundaries of her own life, she also identifies with selfish Scarlett O'Hara, who, lacking in self-awareness and oblivious to the emotions of others, shoulders life's burdens and moves ahead, "her decisions swift, self-serving, and without compromise." The Little House on the Prairie series reminds Blakemore that when we focus on people and life instead of on material possessions, we learn to acknowledge what really counts. She finds inspiration, too, in Little Women, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Color Purple, and Anne of Green Gables, and offers some nuggets of wisdom, but for the most part, her observations are familiar and pat.

    • Library Journal

      February 1, 2011

      In this literary love letter to the heroines and authors of 12 works of classic children's and adult literature, freelance writer Blakemore makes the case that women today can find much inspiration in these characters, e.g., Mary of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden and Janie of Zora Neal Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Among the characteristics she highlights are faith, dignity, compassion, and ambition--not just in the characters she surveys but in the legendary writers who created them, whose personal lives she also examines. Tavia Gilbert's (www.taviagilbert.com) narration is generally good, though she falters occasionally with some accents and dialects. An enjoyable bonus to each chapter are suggestions of additional fictional heroines to discover. For women's studies collections and for lovers of literature.--J. Sara Paulk, Wythe-Grayson Regional Lib., Independence, VA

      Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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