Friday, June 28, 2013

Beyond The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is one of the world's most loved books. Gatsby is the enigmatic and mysterious anti hero that has captured reader's imagination for many years.  

Read some reviews of the book to refresh your memory to deepen your understanding of this beloved novel.
Review from the Guardian by Sarah Churchwell
What makes the Great Gatsby Great also by Sarah Churchwell
Have a look at these fantastic quotes from the books.  Which is your favourite?

Perhaps you need a lovely crafternoon knitting a Daisy cloche from Literary knits : 30 patterns inspired by favourite books.   

The graphic novel interpretation by Nicki Greenberg is a novel way of re-introducing yourself to the book or perhaps just a more interesting way of reading it for the first time!

For more serious readers try some of the notes that go with the novel or
perhaps read a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald.   For a biography on both Scott and Zelda try Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald : sometimes madness is wisdom.    Explore the twenties flapper life in Bright young things : life in the roaring twenties by Alison Maloney.  

Try reading another novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
Novels:
The beautiful and the damned 1920
This side of paradise 1920
Tender is the night 1934

Collections of short stories
Flappers and philosophers 1920
Tales of the Jazz Age 1922
All the sad men 1926
Bits of paradise

Watch previous versions of the book to film interpretations on DVD.

Zelda Fitzgerald is also a fascinating person and author in her own right. Read a fictionalised account of her life in Z : a novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Zelda started life as Zelda Sayre and falls for 'Scott' despite his unsuitable according to her father.  They are thrown into celebrity life in
the Jazz Age. 


For the musically inclined try The great Gatsby: hit songs of the 1920s or relive dazzling moments from the film with the official soundtrack