3. Rebecca (Doubleday & Co): “When Rebecca was first published, Christopher Morley said of it, ‘This is melodrama with all the trimmings. It is superb good entertainment.’ Rebecca has an urgency about its story, a brilliantly created atmosphere of suspense. It is a novel that is infinitely moving, deeply concerned with the inner workings of the minds of men and women. The principal setting is the great Cornwall estate of Manderley, one of the most famous country homes in England. Rebecca, its glamorous mistress, has been dead for eating months when the story opens — drowned in a sailing accident. But through the eyes of Maxim de Winter’s young and frightened second wife the reader comes to know Rebecca form the tall and sloping R with which she signed her name, to the way she organized the magnificent annual costume ball that was attended by the whole country side. There are dozens of superbly drawn characters. Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, is particularly sinister. To suggest the story in brief compass is impossible. The reader must experience the atmosphere of impending disaster, the exquisite love story with its emotion heightened by drama, these surprises, the superb moment of melodrama.”

Writing flaps for classics is always a challenge, one that I think this handles well. I like the fact that whomever wrote this didn’t even bother to summarize: to suggest the story in brief is impossible. Touche.

2. Rapunzel’s Revenge (Bloomsbury): “Once upon a time, in a land you only think you know, lived a little girl and her mother . . . or the woman she thought was her mother. Every day, when the little girl played in her pretty garden, she grew more curious about what lay on the other side of the garden wall . . . a rather enormous garden wall. And every year, as she grew older, things seemed weirder and weirder, until the day she finally climbed to the top of the wall and looked over into the mines and desert beyond. Newbery Honor-winning author Shannon Hale teams up with husband Dean Hale and brilliant artist Nathan Hale (no relation) to bring readers a swashbuckling and hilarious twist on the classic story as you’ve never seen it before. Watch as Rapunzel and her amazing hair team up with Jack (of beanstalk fame) to gallop around the wild and western landscape, changing lives, righting wrongs, and bringing joy to every soul they encounter.”

Delightful, cheeky and fun; makes me want to go re-read the book.

1. Suite Scarlett (Point): “Scarlett Martin has grown up in a most unusual way. Her family owns the Hopewell, a small hotel in the heart of New York City. Her nineteen-year-old brother, Spencer, is an out of work actor facing a family deadline to get his career in order. Eighteen-year-old Lola has the delicate looks of a model, the practical nature of a nurse, and a wealthy society boyfriend. Eleven-year-old Marlene is the family terror with a tragic past. When the Martins turn fifteen, they are each expected to take over the care of a suite in the once elegant, now shabby Art Deco hotel. For Scarlett’s fifteenth birthday, she gets both a room called the Empire Suite, and a permanent guest named Mrs. Amberson. Scarlett doesn’t quite know what to make of this C-list starlet, world traveler, and aspiring autobiographer who wants to take over her life. And when she meets Eric, an astonishingly gorgeous actor who has just moved to the city, her summer takes a second unexpected turn. With Mrs. Amberson calling the shots, Spencer’s career to save, Lola’s love life to navigate around, and Marlene’s prying eyes everywhere, things won’t be easy. Before the summer is over, Scarlett will have to survive a whirlwind of thievery, Broadway glamour, romantic missteps, and theatrical deception. The show, as they say, must always go on . . .””

Captures the essence of the book, is interesting, and doesn’t give too much away. Perfect. (Like the book.)

The One Worst:
Apples and Oranges (Farrar Strauss Giroux): “To be sure, some brothers and sisters have relationships that are easy. But oh, some relationships can be fraught. Confusing, too: How can two people share the same parents and turn out to be entirely different? Marie Brenner’s brother, Carl—yin to her yang, red state to her blue state—lived in Texas and in the apple country of Washington state, cultivating his orchards, polishing his guns, and (no doubt causing their grandfather Isidor to turn in his grave) attending church, while Marie, a world-class journalist and bestselling author, led a sophisticated life among the “New York libs” her brother loathed. From their earliest days there was a gulf between them, well documented in testy letters and telling photos: “I am a textbook younger child . . . training as bête noir to my brother,” Brenner writes. “He’s barely six years old and has already developed the Carl Look. It’s the expression that the rabbit gets in Watership Down when it goes tharn, freezes in the light.” After many years apart, a medical crisis pushed them back into each other’s lives. Marie temporarily abandoned her job at Vanity Fair magazine, her friends, and her husband to try to help her brother. Except that Carl fought her every step of the way. “I told you to stay away from the apple country,” he barked when she showed up. And, “Don’t tell anyone out here you’re from New York City. They’ll get the wrong idea.” As usual, Marie—a reporter who has exposed big Tobacco scandals and Enron—irritated her brother and ignored his orders. She trained her formidable investigative skills on finding treatments to help her brother medically. And she dug into the past of the brilliant and contentious Brenner family, seeking in that complicated story a cure, too, for what ailed her relationship with Carl. If only they could find common ground, she reasoned, all would be well. Brothers and sisters, Apples and Oranges. Marie Brenner has written an extraordinary memoir—one that is heartbreakingly honest, funny and true. It’s a book that even her brother could love.”

Blah, blah, blah. Too long, too pretentious, too boring. After the second sentence, I realize that I don’t really care. (Granted, I didn’t like the book, so that may have influenced things…)