Wednesday, May 19, 2010

A-Z Wednesday: "O"

A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Vicki at Reading At The Beach. To join in, just visit her blog for the guidelines and leave your link in a comment.

This week's letter is "O." So I went to my shelves, and this is what I pulled out.

Orlando
Written by Virginia Woolf
First published by the Hogarth Press, 1928

The cover of the first edition.

Description from Good Reads:
In 1928, way before everyone else was talking about gender-bending . . . Virginia Woolf wrote her comic masterpiece, a fantastic, fanciful love letter disguised as a biography, to Vita Sackville-West. Orlando enters the book as an Elizabethan nobleman and leaves the book three centuries and one change of gender later as a liberated woman of the 1920s. Along the way this most rambunctious of Woolf's characters engages in sword fights, trades barbs with 18th century wits, has a baby, and drives a car. This is a deliriously written, breathless-making book and a classic.

See the book's page at Wikipedia.

The cover of my old Signet Classics edition (complete with coffee-cup stain):



The cover of a recent audio version of the book:


And a selection of various covers the book has sported over the years:


Orlando has been one of my favorite books since I first read it over forty years ago (I was such a precocious youngster!). Set in England and Constantinople, and spanning almost four centuries of wild and crazy adventures, it's a unique and fascinating literary experience.

8 comments:

  1. I am disappointed in myself for not yet finishing a Virginia Woolf book. I really thought I was going to read Mrs. Dalloway, but for whatever reason, I couldn't get into it. My mood was weird...

    Anyway, someday!

    My post:

    http://laurel-rain-outonalimb.blogspot.com/2010/05/z-wednesday_18.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi!
    I must admit I haven't read Ms. Woolf's books. I just can't seem to get into the books wrote in that era. Maybe someday. Have a great day!

    Sherrie
    Just Books
    http://sherriesbooks.blogspot.com/2010/05/z-wednesday_19.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have never read a Virginia Woolf book. I do like the covers.

    My `O` is up

    http://newhorizonreviews.blogspot.com/2010/05/out-of-dust-by-karen-hesse.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great pick1 I love that you feature all the different covers!

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  5. I am another one that must admit that I haven't read anything by Woolf yet...worst yet, I don't even have one of her books on my shelf!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Not one I would normally read, but maybe should.

    http://fredasvoice.blogspot.com/2010/05/to-z-starts-with-o.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have never read a Virginia Woolf book, either. I love the covers of the books!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I have not read Virginia's books. A couple of those covers would have me picking up the book to check it out.

    ReplyDelete

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