Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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How Edith Wharton was ahead of her time.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

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I’ve been trying to read more of my physical books, especially older ones purchased decades ago at warehouse sales, secondhand bookstores (which feel like dying business in my part of the world), and from the lovely global community that was BookMooch. The Age of Innocence was one purchased from a Penguin warehouse sale, and its cover is just so lovely (see this link). It’s 1870s, and Newland Archer is rich, educated, and a little bored, so he decides marriage is a good way to not […]

My first Wharton, but I think others are probably better

Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton

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Gosh guys I was hoping for a lighthearted read after my recent string of apocalyptic tear-jerkers, but this… was not that.  The titular Bunner Sisters are middle-aged spinster sisters in early 1900 New York City. They own a millinery/dress shop, appropriately called “Bunner Sisters” and take care of each other in a pleasant, if dull, routine. Ann Eliza buys a clock for her little sister Evelina for her birthday. The gift of the clock sets them down a path that ends (spoiler?) in what can […]

Nothing like the TV series, and that’s a good thing

The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton

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Cbr17bingo “B” I loves me some Edith Wharton. Wharton wrote what she knew: late 19th/early 20th century old New York society (think “The Gilded Age”) and its dark underbelly. Wharton grew up amongst the New York elite, and in novels like The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country and House of Mirth, she devastates readers with stories of stifling social mores, the struggle of “new money” families to break into elite “old money” circles, and the terrible repercussions for women dependent on men […]

What do we do about the terrible people in our lives? Mostly we keep loving them.

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

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I wished someone would invent an online calculator – the user would enter the name of an artist, whereupon the calculator would assess the heinousness of the crime versus the greatness of the art and spit out a verdict. A calculator is laughable, unthinkable. Yet our moral sense must be made to come into balance with our art-love. I wanted there to be a universal balance, a universal answer. ― Claire Dederer, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma CBR16Bingo: Bananas We are living in an age where […]

The Mona-Lisa (Saperstein) of Old New York

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

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Edith Wharton’s 1913 novel The Custom of the Country is a commentary on manners and society in the vein of a Jane Austen novel, and it is a dark, brooding tale of dysfunctional families reminiscent of the Brontes. The main character, Undine Spragg, is a strikingly beautiful young woman from one of the upstart “new” families, desperately trying to break into New York society and make a good marriage to old money. I’ve seen the name Undine Spragg come up quite a lot recently in […]

Edith Wharton (13)

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

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“Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart.” If a lot of literature in the early 1800s, especially Jane Austen, is concerned with people finding themselves in the right kind of marriage, by the end, with Thomas Hardy, Henry James, and Edith Wharton leading the way, it’s about seeing what happens when you end up in the wrong kind of marriage. Here we have Lily Bart, a woman […]



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