And I mean the book, not some new reality show on Bravo.:)

I read this article this morning about Louisa May Alcott...

http://www.doublex.com/section/arts/litt...

Fascinating. I've never read the book, so I'm curious as to what impact the book had on the women here (and the men, too, I guess, if they read it). I've only seen the movie. What did you think of the book? How old were you when you read it? Would you recommend it to girls/young women today?

whoa, i thought we were talking about vertically challenged chicks or something. carry on

I read Little Women first when I was about nine I think, and I rooted for Jo and loved her sisters and generally loved the whole family, in large part because they were such a family. Family is at the center of that book and I liked that.

When I got older I read Little Women with a different eye as I came to understand the place of the Alcotts in the intellectual and political history of their time, and their connections to the American Transcendentalist movement, and the Abolitionists, and the Womens Suffrage movement and all. But that expanded understanding didn't really change my great affection for the book, just gave it a subtext.

I would recommend it, but probably only to some girls, women, the ones who I felt wouldn't get all hung up on it being written in another time. Because some people read classics and just can't get that autre temps, autre moeurs - other times, other...rules? other ways? So there are some people I wouldn't recommend it to because they would just get frustrated by the fact that these women live in a different society and have somewhat different concerns.

to tell you the truth i never read the book, i did see some sort of movie or made for TV thing on it though, i cant get into these types of things too much but from what i remember it wasn't so bad.. Wuthering Heights was the worst.. i couldn't get into that at all, it was worse then a trip to the dentist.. but required for an english class.. =\

Little Women?
Vertically challenged Ladies?? or the Alcott Girls??

Why don't you start with vertically challenged.

Ah I read Little Woman when I was young too. Absolutely loved it. The movie with Winona Ryder is pretty decent.

And yea, can't read those classics without the understanding that those were different times. Then you can see the brilliance of what the book is saying. Yay Jo!

I would Jim if I could reach the keys.

Hahaha, Team Jo, Lori, Team Jo for you and me!

Funny story -- we had to read Little Women for a freshman honors seminar, which was taught by the original absent-minded professor.
He showed up the day we were supposed to have read it and started asking us questions about why it ended where it did...
we were all completely confused. He seemed to have missed half the book, and therefore half the drama.

As it turned out, when he had been assigned to teach the class, he borrowed his daughter's copy to read it for the first time. His daughter's copy was some British version that only contained book one of what has commonly been combined as a single volume since the 1880s.
And since we were a freshman seminar, he hadn't bothered to read any commentary or suggested study questions.
We had to break it to him that he had only read half the book, and he had to let us go early so he could go read it.

This was also the man who would pay for pizzas that we had ordered if they happened to show up in the middle of class ("I don't remember ordering these..."), and who routinely showed up fifteen minutes late, and who could not find us on the beautiful spring day when we left him a note on the blackboard saying "Lasscay in azebogay".

I'd have liked him.

Loved Little Women, read it at least 40 times, it introduced me to the Victorian era and led me to study the "New England Flowering", helped to addict me to books, but...it's right up there with my Roman Catholic childhood in engendering a life-long sense of guilt because I am not perfect, all-forgiving, universally kind...; oh the hell with it, you all know what I mean. Still love it though.

40 times! Holy hell!

I don't think I've read any grown-up book forty times. Alice In Wonderland...ok...maybe close to forty. But that's a quick read.

I've probably read Charlotte's Web 40 times, and Green Eggs and Ham for sure.
But, wow, Little Women?

Oh, RA, in those days when I could actually concentrate and had few responsibities other than school, I borrowed 6 or 7 books from the library and read every one before returning the next week for 6 or 7 more. Of course, it was very nearly the Dark Ages, with no computers or electronic games and such. Now if I read 3 in a week it's unusual.

To me it was an excellent picture of the era, and I think of a time when books were a primary source of entertainment. Multi-level love story, which i really enjoyed.