Anne of Green Gables is the first book in the Anne of Green Gables series. It takes place, as most of L. M. Montgomery's books do, on Prince Edward Island in Canada. This particular story takes place in the town of Avonlea. It follows young Anne Shirley, an orphan brought to Green Gables to help Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert on their farm. Much to Anne's dismay, Marilla tells her that they wanted a boy to help around the farm, not a girl. However, Marilla changes her mind and decides to keep the dynamic young girl who would become Anne of Green Gables.
This novel is incredibly written, with well-developed characters and an intricate plot. I absolutely loved it. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a great example of children's literature at its height.
List price: $24.00 (that's 30% off!)
The novels set in New York claim first place in the affections of her fans, so the seaside-resort setting is a bit of a disappointment. But there are all the elements later to become hallmarks of the Daly genre: the mixing of high-life and low-life; the laconic detective himself; the endlessly twisty plot; and of course, a hard-boiled, middle-aged woman at the centre of the mystery.
A final, jocular note: I liked the fine period touches; a weak-lunged invalid smokes "special medicated cigarettes".
In fact, the murder of the young mill owner, Mr. Henry Carson - he too an admirer of Miss Barton - is not well developed and is not the central point of the novel because the reader knows all the time who is the real murderer. So, it's not a surprise at all the ending of the trial and the revelation of the real murderer in the last chapters.
Miss Gaskell has a simple and an almost näive vision of the social problems that harassed the working class in England when the Industrial Revolution started. Even though, we must recognize that she made a good work trying to denounce the insensibility of the English government about the problems of the workers and their families and the inflexibility of the mill owners and other high economic classes to negociate with their subordinates.
Mary Barton is a book that will hold the attencion of the readers, men or women, because Miss Gaskell has an elegant style and really knows how to tell a good story. Another great vintage of this novel are some great characters portrayed with flavour and undeniable charm, like the old and friendly Mr. Job Legh and the hard and anger John Barton, Mary's father.
Worth reading, particularly if you're a fan of the novel (or history) of the period.
The art attempts to convey the artist's message emotionally while reaching out to its viewer in the hopes of bonding. The entire book is pure eye candy in every free hand drawing, pixel, vector graphic, 3-D objects, and an encyclopedia of resurfacing motifs. Even non-Internet surfers will recognize many of the colorful and creative designs because they are found other media including television, books, and video games.
The index lists all the titles of the art, contributors' names along with their email and Web addresses. As a confessed non-artist, I'm amazed as I flip through pages of expressive and colorfully rendered art. The book can be much more than just another art book, it can be an inspiration for those in the process of creating. This is the coffee table book for geeks and Web designers and it'll go just fine with the books containing the Monets, Picassos, and Renoirs.
The book has a companion Web site and you can view pages at the publisher's Web site.