Share-A-Book Saturday (22)

This is something I found over on Just Another Book Addict =), and I thought I'd do my own. There are so many great books out there that get overlooked (especially if they've been out for a while)!

Every Saturday, you share (recommend) a book, preferably one that you haven't reviewed yet. It's just a way to get other books out into the blogging world. This is NOT a review.

Today I'm going to recommend I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle's walls, and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has "captured the castle"--and the heart of the reader--in one of literature's most enchanting entertainments.

I don't think I've ever identified with a narrator more than when I read I Capture the Castle years ago. It certainly wasn't Cassandra's circumstances that I identified with. Perhaps it was her personality. In any case, I fell in love with this book. It will always have a place on my list of favourites.

Yes, there was a movie made a few years ago. It's probably good in its own right... as long as you haven't read the book. There are just so many more wonderful little things in the book that never made it into the film, things that really shaped the characters and their actions.

Though this novel is over 60 years old, the coming-of-age story is a classic... and, hopefully, will remain so for generations to come.