Novellas in November Wrap-Up

Novellas in November is over for 2024 and I had a very successful month of reading. It even surprised me to note how many books I was able to read and review. 

In total I completed 19 novellas, or short books. I DNF'd one book. I reviewed all but one of the books. To my delight I was able to finish several classic novellas which have long resided on my TBR pile: A Christmas Carol, Giovanni's Room, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Turn of the Screw, A Room of One's Own. I read several books I never would have picked up if not for this challenge (All Systems Red, A Strange Library) and found new favorites (Foster, Truman Capote's Stories, Orbital). I even read the best novel noone has ever heard of: Pedro Páramo. It was a good month!

Here are my reviews, many posted in batches of three:

1-2-3: Review batch number one:

A Christmas Carol by Dickens

Dept. of Speculation by Offill

A Strange Library by Murakami

4-5-6 Review batch two, all classics:

Giovanni's Room by Baldwin

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy

The Postman Always Rings Twice by Cain

7-8-9 Review batch three:

Foster by Keegan

Buffalo Dream by Duncan

All Systems Red by Wells

10 Single review and group read:

Orbital by Harvey

11 Single Classic review:

The Turn of the Screw by James

12-13-14 Review batch four:

Whereabouts by Lahiri

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by King

House Made of Dawn by Momaday

15 Single Classic review:

Pedro Páramo by Rulfo

16-17-18 Review batch five:

Truman Capote Stories (A Christmas Memory; One Christmas; and The Thanksgiving Visitor)

A Room of One's Own by Woolf

Another Brooklyn by Woodson

-Anne

Three Novella Reviews: TRUMAN CAPOTE STORIES; A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN; ANOTHER BROOKLYN

Today is November 30th. It is my last chance to highlight three more novellas completed this month. And what a way to go out.

Truman Capote: A Christmas Memory. One Christmas & The Thanksgiving Visitor. Modern Library, 1996. 107 pages.

Taking its place next to Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood on the bookshelf is this new and original edition of Capote's most famous short stories: "A Christmas Memory, " "One Christmas, " and "The Thanksgiving Visitor." All three stories are distinguished by Capote's delicate interplay of childhood sensibility and recollective vision, evoking a strong sense of place. (Publisher)

I dropped by a used bookstore the other day, looking for a gift for my mother, a 95-year-old voracious reader. I found a few good books I know she will like but while I was perusing the shelves for one more, to round out the lot, this used Truman Capote short story collection caught my eye. I've read, in fact, I own a copy of "A Christmas Story," but was not familiar with the other two stories. Of particular interest to me was "The Thanksgiving Visitor" since we just celebrated that holiday. Since my husband was driving I started it before we left the store's parking lot. I completed the book this morning, devouring all three stories before handing it over to Mom.

Truman Capote had an especially hard childhood. One bereft of love from either parent. As a very young child he was shunted off to live with his mother's relatives in Alabama and there he found love and solace from a distant cousin, Miss. Sook, a 60-year-old who was very much like a child. Capote considered her his best friend. All three of the stories involve his adventures with Miss Sook. In "A Christmas Memory", Buddy, as he was called, and his friend make fruitcake and prepare for Christmas. Neither task was easy because it was The Depression and money was scarce. But the love and the fun were abundant. In "One Christmas," Buddy has to travel to New Orleans by himself to spend the holidays with his father, who he barely knows. His friend enticed him to go with the promise of possible snow. Buddy had his belief in Santa Claus shaken by a father who did not believe in magic. In the last story, "The Thanksgiving Visitor," Miss Sook invites Odd Henderson to join their family for Thanksgiving dinner. Odd is Buddy's tormentor at school and he wants nothing to do with the bully. Thanks to his best friend, a truce of sorts is reached and lesson is learned.

I loved all three stories and I hope to add this book to my Christmas-book reading rotation next year, after I retrieve this copy of the book from my mother.

Though not officially a novella, I am counting it as part of my Novellas in November challenge. At 107 pages it looks and feels like a novella.

Rating: 5 stars

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson. Harper Collins, 2016. 175 pages.

Running into a long-ago friend sets memories from the 1970s in motion for August, transporting her to a time and a place where friendship was everything—until it wasn’t. For August and her girls, sharing confidences as they ambled through neighborhood streets, Brooklyn was a place where they believed that they were beautiful, talented, brilliant—a part of a future that belonged to them.

But beneath the hopeful veneer, there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls in dark hallways, where ghosts haunted the night, where mothers disappeared. A world where madness was just a sunset away and fathers found hope in religion. (Publisher)

I finished up my Novellas in November challenge with an author I am very familiar with, Jacqueline Woodson. This book, Another Brooklyn, is her first foray into adult fiction, but it is every way just as poetic as her poetry-in-prose novels and memoirs meant for teens and preteens. Those books, however, were more straightforward. I found this book confusing as the narrator wanders around in her memory circling around the question of what happened to her mother. None of the characters were fully fleshed out, either, so when bad/sad/frustrating things happened to them I felt little compassion or empathy as a reader. Set during the early 1970s, there were a few cultural references to the events of the times, but most didn't really impact the story so their mention was just window dressing. Honestly, I like Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming much better than this book if you are thinking of giving this author a try.

My rating: 3.5 stars.

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. Original publisher: Hogarth Press, 1929. 112 pages. Audiobook published by Fort Raphael Publishing Co., 2025. [Not a typo. This is the date stated on the audiobook.]

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister. A sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, and equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary women never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. If only she had found the means to create, argues Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling. In this classic essay, Virginia Woolf takes on the establishment, using her gift of language to dissect the world around her and give voice to those without. Her message is a simple one: women must have some money and a room of their own in order to have the freedom to create. (Publisher)

In 1928 Woolf was asked to give a series of lectures at Newnham and Girton colleges on the topic of 'Women and Fiction.' This small volume is a collection of essays based on those lectures. Though the book has a fictional narrator who tells the story of not only the research Woolf did in preparation but also her opinions about other female writers, of whom only Jane Austen and Emily Bronte gained her praise. The book is considered nonfiction, shelved in the social science section of a library, specifically under feminist literature. Technically, it is not a novella either, but we were assured tby hosts of Novellas in November that nonfiction titles were allowed. Woolf is a spectacular writer.

I don't know how I managed to live over 60 years without reading this classic very feminist book about what women need to be self-sufficient and equal to men in power and talent. Even a hundred years after these essays were written we are still struggling to reach a true level of equality, which completely gauls me. In fact, I couldn't help thinking of the results of the 2024 US election being, at least in part, due to misogyny. Grr. 

I started out reading the print edition but found it very difficult to read due to the pages-long paragraphs. I switched to the audio version, narrated by Sara Nichols. Since I purchased it with an Audible credit I can urge my daughters to listen to it and there will be no impediment to their access. I want my daughters to grow up believing they can do anything they want, not held back by their gender. I also want to reread it in a year or two as I'm sure I will get plenty of new insights from it on each reading.

My rating: 5 stars.

-Anne