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leasummer's review against another edition
3.0
Quick biography on Virginia Woolf, including her life, her works and history at the time. My book club is reading a book by her and I thought this would be a great way to get started.
miraveta's review against another edition
2.25
Eyeroll worthy opinions in the first section. Redeems itself by the halfway point, only to fall short again at the end.
cryo_guy's review against another edition
3.0
"Unlike male homosexuality, lesbianism was not illegal--for the simple reason that Queen Victoria, when asked to sign the bill banning homosexuality, had refused to believe that such a thing as lesbianism could even exist. The minister presenting the bill had blanched at the thought of contradicting his redoubtable queen on this difficult topic, let alone explaining the mechanisms of its practice, and as a result lesbianism was not included in the bill outlawing homosexuality."
I picked this up at some library sale; I'm not overly fond of the whole "condensed lessons" idea, but it was like a penny and I didn't know that much about Woolf so I thought I would give it a read (no more than 90 minutes, of course!). Strathern seems competent.
I would say this is marginally better than reading Woolf's wiki page. It's certainly better organized and gives a concise telling of her life events, sociohistorical context, and minimal interpretative analysis of her major works. In that respect it was a pretty useful slim volume.
Who would I recommend it to? Hm, those who don't want to look on wikipedia and find some other reliable interpretation and also want a brief overview. It's nice that he goes over the three categories I mentioned because that's what one would want in approaching Woolf as a whole, I'd think.
I will now be passing this on to someone else who can decide to leave it on their shelf and never read it. Haha.
I picked this up at some library sale; I'm not overly fond of the whole "condensed lessons" idea, but it was like a penny and I didn't know that much about Woolf so I thought I would give it a read (no more than 90 minutes, of course!). Strathern seems competent.
I would say this is marginally better than reading Woolf's wiki page. It's certainly better organized and gives a concise telling of her life events, sociohistorical context, and minimal interpretative analysis of her major works. In that respect it was a pretty useful slim volume.
Who would I recommend it to? Hm, those who don't want to look on wikipedia and find some other reliable interpretation and also want a brief overview. It's nice that he goes over the three categories I mentioned because that's what one would want in approaching Woolf as a whole, I'd think.
I will now be passing this on to someone else who can decide to leave it on their shelf and never read it. Haha.
pizzamcpin3ppl3's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.75