AJ Dunn Reads

  Nicholas Nickleby By Charles Dickens  4 stars.

  Orlando By Virginia Woolf  4 stars.

  Frankenstein By Mary Shelley  5 stars.

  The Woman in White By Wilkie Collins  4 stars.

  Les Misérables By Victor Hugo  3 stars.

  The War of the Worlds By H.G. Wells  3 stars.

  Peace Breaks Out By John Knowles  4 stars.

  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde By Robert Louis Stevenson  4 stars.

  Franny and Zooey By J.D. Salinger  4 stars.

  Cannery Row By John Steinbeck  4 stars.

  Villette By Charlotte Brontë   3 stars.

 Agnes Grey By Anne Brontë   4 stars.

  Mansfield Park By Jane Austen   3 stars.

  Emma By Jane Austen   4.5 stars.

  The Hound of the Baskervilles By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle   4 stars.

  Madame Bovary By Gustave Flaubert 5 stars!

  The Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer   4 stars.

  Far from the Madding Crowd By Thomas Hardy   4 stars

  Dracula By Bram Stoker My first time finally reading Dracula! Jonathan Harker is on his way to Transylvania to assist Count Dracula with his home purchase in England. While there he encounters Dracula's strange habits and is visited by three women who seem intent on having their way with him. He explores the castle and discovers his worst nightmares. He is a prisoner, it seems, to a very dark force. Back in England Lucy, Mina Murray's friend, starts exhibiting strange behavior due to unaccounted for blood loss. Mina, Jonathan's fiance, worries about him. She hasn't heard from him for a long time. Doctor Seward takes care of Lucy, but has to call in a friend, Doctor Van Helsing, when Lucy's health continues to go down hill. Van Helsing suspects he knows what is happening. Local children start to go missing and show up claiming they were playing with a woman. Several of Lucy's admirers converge to solve this riddle. Seward, along with two others (Arthur and Quin...

  Maurice By E.M. Forster   Maurice Hall is conventional by all standards in his Edwardian society, except that he is gay. As he grows up he tries to deny the fact, but then falls in love with a boy from school and they form a romantic relationshi9p that ends when Clive marries, denying his feelings for Maurice. Maurice focuses his energies on work, unwilling to believe that Clive doesn't love him. But he eventually falls for someone of a lower class and finds that he can truly be happy if he denies the conventionality he has relied on his whole life. This was a beautifully written story, my first experience with E.M. Forster. It was moving and I could fully identify with Maurice's struggle, particularly when Clive denies him and Maurice is afloat with his feelings. I liked the class discussion, and was particularly happy when Maurice decided love mattered more than his standing in society. It was an excellent book, elegant and emotional. 4 stars.