How to Be a Heroine: Or, what I've learned from reading too much - Softcover

Ellis, Samantha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099575566 ISBN 13: 9780099575566

Publisher: Vintage Books, 2015

Synopsis

A funny, touching, inspiring exploration of the role of heroines, and our favourite books, in all our lives.
   Cathy Earnshaw or Jane Eyre?
   Petrova or Posy?
   Scarlett or Melanie?
   Lace or Valley of the Dolls?

   On a pilgrimage to Wuthering Heights, Samantha Ellis found herself arguing with her best friend about which heroine was best: Jane Eyre or Cathy Earnshaw. She was all for wild, passionate Cathy; but her friend found Cathy silly, a snob, while courageous Jane makes her own way.
     And that's when Samantha realised that all her life she'd been trying to be Cathy when she should have been trying to be Jane. So she decided to look again at her heroines -- the girls, women, books that had shaped her ideas of the world and how to live. Some of them stood up to the scrutiny (she will always love Lizzy Bennet); some of them most decidedly did not (turns out Katy Carr from What Katy Did isn't a carefree rebel, she's a drip). There were revelations (the real heroine of Gone with the Wind? It's Melanie), joyous reunions (Anne of Green Gables), poignant memories (Sylvia Plath) and tearful goodbyes (Lucy Honeychurch). And then there was Jilly Cooper.
How To Be A Heroine is Samantha's funny, touching, inspiring exploration of the role of heroines, and our favourite books, in all our lives -- and how they change over time, for better or worse, just as we do.

About this title

About the Author:

SAMANTHA ELLIS is a playwright and journalist. The daughter of Iraqi-Jewish refugees, she grew up thinking her family had travelled everywhere by magic carpet. From an early age she knew she didn't want their version of a happy ending -- marriage to a nice Iraqi-Jewish boy -- so she read books to find out what she did want. Her plays include Patching Havoc, Sugar and Snow and Cling To Me Like Ivy, and she is a founding member of women's theatre company Agent 160. She lives in London.

Review:

   · "Any woman with a remotely bookish childhood will find great pleasure in How to be a Heroine... like Ellis, I find it reassuring that Lizzy Bennet can admit that she was wrong about Darcy, have used Scarlett's indomitable mantra in times of adversity, and have every sympathy with the women who keep their bank accounts separate as in Lace." --Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0099575566
• ISBN 13: 9780099575566
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272