| Title | : | The Da Vinci Code / Up And Down In The Dales / The Return Of The Dancing Master / A Gathering Light |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0276428676 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780276428678 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 546 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2002 |
The Da Vinci Code / Up And Down In The Dales / The Return Of The Dancing Master / A Gathering Light Reviews
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I love Reader's Digest Select Edition because it is a single book with four awesome stories. What can you ask for!
Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
- the details is in the Status, just check it out. I read it first way back around 2 years before.
Up and Down in the Dales by Gervase Phinn
- the details is in the Status, just check it out. I read it first way back around 2 years before, too.
The Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell
- the details is in the Status. I place the story and review in there. Check it out.
A Gathering of Light by Jennifer Donnely
- I am writing my review and summary of the story here.
The story is set in the early 20th century, 1906 specifically. It is more than a century today and it is awesome to read how they live their lives. The story is told in a wonderful way and inspiring. It makes me happy, annoyed, sad, disappointed, but hopeful. It is the year when racism is strong and just shit.
This is the summary of the story.
Mathilda "Mattie" Gokey is the narrator and heroine of this novel. She is only sixteen years old and dreaming of going to college to study literature. On a good day, she is working in the grand hotel when Grace's body is retrieved from the lake. It is said that Grace Brown and Carl Grahm went for boating to sightsee nature. But only Grace's dead body and upside-down boat were retrieved. The body of Carl Grahm is missing. Before the incident happened, Mattie overheard the couple talking about looking for a church but Carl wants to go boating first. Before going out, Grace gave Mattie a couple of letters and asked her to burn it no matter what. Perplexed and confused, Matt hid the letters under her bed. When the news arrived, Mattie noticed that Carl Grahm is a fake name and his real identity is in the letter, Chester Gillette. The people believed that it is an accident and Carl's body is still missing.
Mattie is an intelligent girl and loves reading books. She long to go to college and study literature. She also passed the scholarship in the Barnard New York but she made a promise to her dead mother that she will never leave her sisters after her older brother left them. The reason why her brother leave is because they had a fight with his father. After their mother died of cancer, her brother accused their father of murdering their mother because of too much work. Little he knows that cancer killed her. Their father beat him using the peavey and he ran away leaving his little sister, Mattie, Abby, Beth, and, Lou and never came back. Their father is adamant about not letting Mattie go since there are too many works on their farm. They have lots of acre of land to be farmed and animals to take care of. Her sisters are also young and she doesn't have enough money for trains, books, and others.
Royal Loomis is the man Mattie likes. He is a farmer just like his father. When Matt said her dreams, Royal thinks that it is only a waste of money. He doesn't understand how Matt loves literature and questioned her dreams. She is angry at him but when disaster came where her family had all illness, Royal is the one that helped them. They kissed whenever they are going somewhere alone. At first, Matt is new to this and hesitant but after then she felt his warmth. Royal asked her to marry him and Matt said yes. He bought a ring and put it in her ring. At this point, Matt is so sure that her dream is slipping away. She will marry Royal, have babies, and be stuck in their country.
Her teacher, Emily Wilcox is supporting her to go to college. She helped in the housing by talking to her sister in New York and also with the scholarship. Emily Baxter is married to an influential man who doesn't understand her love of literature. He also threatened Emily to send her to the hospital as a mental patient if she didn't stop writing rebellious literature. So Emily has no choice but to go back and leave her students. She finally told her teacher that she will not continue college. Emily is disappointed but still hoped that she will go after her dream.
One day, she went to visit her friend, Minnie, who had her twins. Minnie married the older brother of Royal named Jim. Upon arriving at their house, she saw how disastrous and stressed Minnie is. She is breastfeeding her twins and she is hazed and looked old. She realized that being married is hard. Minnie also lashed out to Matt about her not marrying Jim because it is difficult. Mattie remembered what her teacher Emily said that most of her read authors didn't married and just write. For example, Jane Austen didn't marry and she lived her life alone but she fulfilled her dreams. There are also other authors who married and had children. It depends on you but having a family means dividing your time in writing and etc.
Royal went to the grand hotel where Matt is working and brings strawberry pies since is it her birthday. Matt is proud of him being her future husband. Until Ada said that her brother heard Martha Miller and Royal Loomis talking in the back of the hotel about him breaking her heart. Inside the hotel, Martha told Matt that Royal is only marrying her because of his father's land. When they married, Matt's father will give land to Royal's family as a dowry. Matt remembered Royal telling her that he dreams of having lots of land for pasture and farming. From Royal's land to his father's land is the land of Emmie Hubbart who never paid for her taxes for years now. No one care if Emmie Hubbart doesn't pay her taxes for years until today when someone long to buy their land. Matt is horrified and confronted Royal. He said that he is the one buying the Hubbart land leaving the Emmie and her 7 children to go nowhere. He also said that he knows that Emmie and her father Frank Loomis is having an affair. That's the reason why he wanted Emmie to be gone. Matt understands what he felt because she saw Emmie and Frank having an affair in Emmie's house. This is when she brought milk to the Hubbart's house. All the children are outside waiting for Frank and Emmie to fix the stove. She knows that fixing the stove is not that dangerous so she entered the house despite the children telling her not to. She went inside and saw Emmie bent in the table under Frank having an affair. Tommy, one of Emmie's son, followed Matt and also saw it. Horrified Mattie went outside and leave the milk to the children.
On the night of Matt's birthday, Royal gave her a gift. It is a book and Matt is overjoyed until she saw that it is a cookbook. All her hope of Royal being his husband is drained because Royal will never understand her dream. But she still smiled and acts as if she loved the book.
Matt and Weaver are classmates and close friends. Weaver is black and always fighting for justice when people look down at them. They are both dreaming of going to college. Weaver wants to be a lawyer and fight for justice. He is going to Columbia. He often fights with racist people. One time on the train, an old couple called him as a servant to carry their luggage even he isn't one. He threw their luggage and caused conflict. The second time, he fought the three gangsters and he is badly injured. Luckily those three racists men were sent to jail. When they were released, they set his house on fire and took his college money. His mother is badly injured after fighting them.
While Matt is curious about what is inside the letters of Grace, she opened them one by one. She deducted that Chester is the lover of Grace. They are sending letters to one another. Grace has more letters sent than Chester's reply. She read that Grace told him that she doesn't know how to swim when Chester sent a letter that he is having fine time in the lake with his friends. They are also meeting. Grace wrote in one of the letters that she is carrying her child and she will stop working and go hide before others know. This Chester is the same Carl Grahm that she went to boating when she is murdered. Matt knows that Chester killed her. They went boating, went to another side of the shore, and leave his belongings. Then in returning back, Chester hit Grace and pushed in the lake. Knowing that Grace doesn't know how to swim, he planned it all along. Even she didn't hit Grace, she will still die of drowning. Just because he doesn't want others to know or even give justice to his baby, she killed her.
With this, Matt realized that she will not become Grace who died. She took all her saved money. Give 12 dollars for the family of Emily Hubbart to pay for the land. She also gave 2 dollars to her father for the remaining payment for the cow he bought. Returned back the ring that Royal gave. Give 7 dollars to Weaver to continue his dreams after the gangster took his college money. She cannot allow that her friend will be stuck in this town. She is seeing him wearing a tuxedo and holding a briefcase and she doesn't want this to be just a dream. She assured that Weaver's mother will be taken care of by Emmie Hubbart because she will still have her land after giving them the money. And finally, with her remaining two dollars, she bid this town goodbye and went to start her dream -to the Barnard!
In the train station, she heard two reporters talking about a girl who drowned in their lake. She told herself that one day they will that her name is Grace and her story will be told.
She never burned the letters, she took it as evidence.
The story of Grace's murder happened in real life. Jennifer's grandmother told her the story and the news became famous during this time. She combined it with a little imagination and it is where Matt Gokey became alive. It may be the finale for Grace but for Matt, it is just beginning.
I am happy that Matt chose to pursue her dreams and keep away from people questioning her dreams. I am envious since she has dreams worth fighting for.
Life was so simple in this year but also annoying because there the racism for blacks and education is underrated. I am lucky for having freedom. -
A brilliant book and a brilliant story line. Loved all the twists and one of my favourites!
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Heavily hyped and, I was distressed to find, a Richard-and-Judy rec. No better than average: painstaking in historical detail, and very eager that the reader should know that.
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The Da Vinci Code: 5 stars
Up and Down in the Dales: 5 stars
The Return of the Dancing Master: 4 stars
A Gathering Light: 3 stars
(Average:4.25) -
Enjoyable
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Love all the 4 stories but need to admit I lost my focus on The Da Vinci Code since there's quite lot a foreign words (obviously France) but the other 3 were enjoyable. I even try to mimick the Yorkshire dialect, it's so funny.
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marked it as to-read
