Saturday, March 29, 2014

Five unconventional fictional families

Emma Donoghue's latest novel is Frog Music.

The author tagged five favorite unconventional fictional families for the Telegraph, including:
Rewatching the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (1813), I was struck by what an oddly tough-minded portrayal of a family Jane Austen’s novel is: that crass mother, that feeble but likeable father, and those five daughters, most of whom have nothing in common and no liking for each other.
Read about another entry on the list.

Pride and Prejudice also appears on Amelia Schonbek's list of five approachable must-read classics, Melissa Albert's list of recommended reading for eight villains, Jane Stokes's top ten list of the hottest men in required reading, Gwyneth Rees's top ten list of books about siblings, the Observer's list of the ten best fictional mothers, Paula Byrne's list of the ten best Jane Austen characters, Robert McCrum's list of the top ten opening lines of novels in the English language, a top ten list of literary lessons in love, Simon Mason's top ten list of fictional families, Cathy Cassidy's top ten list of stories about sisters, Paul Murray's top ten list of wicked clerics, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best housekeepers in fiction, ten great novels with terrible original titles, and ten of the best visits to Brighton in literature, Luke Leitch's top ten list of the most successful literary sequels ever, and is one of the top ten works of literature according to Norman Mailer. Richard Price has never read it, but it is the book Mary Gordon cares most about sharing with her children.

The Page 99 Test: Pride and Prejudice.

--Marshal Zeringue