William Faulkner: His Tippah County Heritage by Jane Isbell Haynes

This book traces Falkner and Murry family roots in Tippah County, Mississippi. It makes the case that parts of Flags in the Dust and The Sound and the Fury are based more in Ripley than in Oxford. Appended to the end is a memoir by a woman who is part of the family whose son WC Falkner shot before the Civil War. There are great pictures, but overall, only worth reading if you're interested in tracing Faulkner's Mississippi roots.

Where Angels Fear to Tread

This novel surprised me. I expected it to be about Lilia, on whose departure it opens, but it was nothing of the sort. Her family (really, in-laws from her first marriage) is deliciously snobby and prudish, of course, and when her brother- and sister-in-law go to Italy to straighten out the man she married and recover the son she left after she dies, things get tricky. Italy is supposed, of course, to change both Caroline Abbot (Lilia's erstwhile companion, whom they meet down there) and Phillip Herritan (her brother-in-law) for the better; At first I was a little unconvinced by the change, but now that I think about it, both characters seem magnificently drawn. These two created the center of the novel for me, (though who wouldn't like Gino, especially in his second appearance), and of course the painful irony of the end is what teaches Phillip perhaps the most telling lesson of all.

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

By my count, this time was my fifth reading this book, and it remains one of my absolute favorites. I love the layers of story-telling, the resonances between Quentin, Shreve, and Henry, and even that demon, Sutpen. In this reading, I noticed many more similarities between Sutpen and his son Charles, the novel's tendency to use economic metaphors to describe transactions of the heart, and the chronological misplacement of Haiti in the narrative. I was also awed by the beautiful structure, which carefully builds up to the novel's awful climax. It's clearly a novel about what it means to tell a story, about perspective, about multiple discourses (including those we can never know), about the South, and about love, friendship, and pride. I don't recommend reading this novel once--read it many times, or never pick it up.

Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier

I enjoyed this novel of the Haitian Revolution and its immediate aftermath. I found the repetition of slavery, despite changing circumstances both telling and moving. I was also intrigued by Henri-Christophe's insistent copying of European and especially French conventions. I think the use of magical realism and voodoo was particularly effective.

The Spiderwick Chronicles in Five Volumes by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

I read this book because I had seen it recommended as an after Harry Potter book, and because I kept seeing the trailer for the movie. It's got some neat ideas (I like the hidden library that they find through the dumbwaiter), but it doesn't have the same cross-generational appeal as Harry Potter. Also, the first book felt like hardly any story was told at all--I imagine that all five books in the story fit into one arc, and the story is divided into five books in order to make them into manageable sizes for younger readers. At any rate, it was a very quick read.

***
I finished reading this series because it was a quick and easy read. It's one story split across five books to make it easier for younger readers or to make more money for the publishers (take your pick). It wasn't bad as far as it went, but I didn't find it incredibly compelling.

The Grandissimes: A Story of Creole Life by George Washington Cable

George Washington Cable sets this story of creole life in the city of New Orleans at the traumatic moment when Napoleon sold his North American holdings to the United States. With the use of Joseph Frowenfield, a German-American who immigrates to New Orleans and promptly looses all his family to yellow fever, Cable is able to get an outside perspective on the insular creole world of New Orleans and the gothic fall of the house of Grandissime. Aspects of the story I found particularly intriguing included the mixture of languages used both in the text and in the story, the story of Bras Coupé, the awareness of Saint Dominique and the Haitian Revolution, and the doubling, between Aurore and Clotilde Nancanou, and Honoré Grandissime and Honoré Grandissime, f.m.c.. Overall very good.

Juanita: A Real Life Romance of Life in Cuba Fifty Years Ago by Mary Peabody Mann

I found this book intriguing, if rushed at the end. As usual with books set in the Caribbean, I was fascinated by all the languages at play in the story if not the text itself. I was interested in the religious references that were scattered throughout the book; these references became more definite and proselytizing towards the end. I was also intrigued by the trope of good masters being as ensnared in the system of slavery as the slaves themselves. Finally, I thought the position of Helen Wentworth, New England spinster, fascinating. This book might have been an important anti-slavery narrative (though it has its share of racial prejudices) had it been released more promptly (it was based on the author's stay in Cuba from 1833 to 1835 and apparently mostly drafted by the 1850s), but because it was published in 1888, it remains a bit of a historical footnote.