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Jenny McPhee

Goodreads Author

Influences

Muriel Spark, Shirley Jackson, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, John ...more

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October 2009

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Jenny McPhee is the author of the novels A Man of No Moon, No Ordinary Matter, and The Center of Things. She is the coauthor with her sisters Martha and Laura of Girls: Ordinary Girls and Their Extraordinary Pursuits. Her translations include Paolo Maurensig's Canone Inverso, and Crossing the Threshold of Hope by Pope John Paul II.
Her short stories and articles have appeared in Bookforum; Brooklyn Review; Descant; Glamour; Glimmer Train; Harper’s Bazaar; The New York Times and Zoetrope.
She is on the board of The Bronx Academy of Letters. She is presently living in London where she co-runs The Upper Wimpole Street Literary Salon.

Favorite Quote: “I read poetry to save time.” –Marilyn Monroe

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Jenny McPhee's Blog

HARDLY A FEMALE IN SIGHT: DAVID THOMSON'S THE BIG SCREEN

Midway through David Thomson’s meandering and (self-) reflective history of world cinema, The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies and What They Did to Us, he discusses British director David Lean’s classic film Brief Encounter, a “woman’s film” about an adulterous affair. Thomson is mystified by the film’s “tacit admission of women’s tragic position, whereas in Lean’s best-loved films (The Bridge Read more of this blog post »

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Published on March 08, 2013 02:56

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Jenny McPhee’s books

Average rating: 3.77 · 4,667 ratings · 607 reviews · 15 distinct works • Similar authors

	Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg, Jenny McPhee (Goodreads Author) (Translator), Peg Boyers (Afterword) 3.90 avg rating — 24,573 ratings — published 1963 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, Jenny McPhee (Goodreads Author) (Introduction) 3.61 avg rating — 7,269 ratings — published 1925 — 265 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Crossing the Threshold of Hope by Pope John Paul II, Martha McPhee (Goodreads Author), Jenny McPhee (Goodreads Author) 4.24 avg rating — 4,751 ratings — published 1994 — 98 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Neapolitan Chronicles by Anna Maria Ortese, Ann Goldstein (Translation), Jenny McPhee (Goodreads Author) (Translation) 3.57 avg rating — 3,159 ratings — published 1953 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Center of Things 3.23 avg rating — 165 ratings — published 2001 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	No Ordinary Matter: A Novel 3.35 avg rating — 94 ratings — published 2004 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Man of No Moon 2.97 avg rating — 78 ratings — published 2007 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Girls: Ordinary Girls and Their Extraordinary Pursuits by Jenny McPhee (Goodreads Author), Martha McPhee (Goodreads Author), Laura McPhee 3.93 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 2000 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Doodgewone dingen 2.88 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2005 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Man of No Moon 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Jenny McPhee…

Jenny is Currently Reading

Jenny McPhee is currently reading

A Visit to Don Otavio

by Sybille Bedford

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Jul 16, 2012 12:07AM

Jenny McPhee is currently reading

Some Do Not...

by Ford Madox Ford

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Feb 09, 2013 11:07AM

Jenny McPhee is currently reading

Around the World in Eighty Days

by Jules Verne

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Aug 29, 2024 10:41AM

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Seasonal Read...: Winter Challenge 2011: Completed Tasks -DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC	2866	790	Feb 29, 2012 09:03PM
Never too Late to...: 2024 November/December: Two Authors Born on an Island	57	46	Jan 07, 2025 06:32PM

Jenny’s Quotes

“I read poetry to save time.”
― Marilyn Monroe

576 likes

“Some writers are only born to help another writer write one sentence.”
― Ernest Hemingway

16 likes

“Don't get it right, get it written.”
― James Thurber

87 likes

“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”
― Hemingway, Ernest

107 likes

“Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

tags: art, haunted, house, nature

1038 likes

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Jenny’s Groups

¡ POETRY ! — 22582 members — last activity Dec 24, 2025 01:37PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

Victorians! — 3767 members — last activity 3 hours, 0 min ago
Some of the best books in the world were written and published in Great Britain between 1837 and 1901. What's not to love? Dickens, the Brontes, Co ...more

THE JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB — 6691 members — last activity 15 hours, 25 min ago
ALL GENRE COMMUNITY OF BOOK LOVERS-Perfect for those interested in good books of any genre, film and lively discussion!- from current fiction, thrille ...more

Bronx Academy of Letters — 15 members — last activity Oct 17, 2007 09:55AM
This group is for students, alumni, staff, and community members of the Bronx Academy of Letters who are on Goodreads. Please share your books and opi ...more

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For friends of NYRB Classics

The Year of Reading Proust — 1631 members — last activity Mar 29, 2025 09:41AM
2013 was the year for reading—or re-reading—Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu or In Search of Lost Time for many of us. However, these th ...more

The Thomas Mann Group — 246 members — last activity Aug 12, 2020 09:04PM
Members of Kindred Spirits and other interested GR members read the works of Thomas Mann. Our next scheduled read is The Magic Mountain, taking plac ...more

Divine Comedy + Decameron — 268 members — last activity Nov 07, 2020 01:07PM
This group is for those interested in reading either or both Dante's Divine Comedy or Boccaccio's Decameron in 2014. Each read will be non-concurrent ...more

2015: The Year of Reading Women — 675 members — last activity Apr 01, 2020 04:01AM
Join us for a year of member-run group reads to make 2015 the year of reading women! Rules Members are free to create author threads by surname if th ...more

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Jenny’s Friend Comments

Comments (showing 1-6) post a comment »

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message 6: by Kris

Oct 20, 2012 03:12AM

Jenny wrote: "Me too, Kris. Just noticed you and I were born on the same day! (with a five year gap in your favor). Much in common...."

That's great -- I love coincidences like that. :)

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message 5: by Jenny

Oct 20, 2012 02:52AM

Me too, Kris. Just noticed you and I were born on the same day! (with a five year gap in your favor). Much in common....

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message 4: by Kris

Oct 20, 2012 02:36AM

Thanks so much for the friend request, Jenny! I see a lot of overlap in our shelves already. I'm looking forward to reading more of your reviews and to having some great discussions with you.

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message 3: by Ben

Oct 06, 2012 01:51AM

i love the movie too, and didn't even know it was a book, found it by accident at the bookstore. but the book is really different; it's not as glossy or romantic, and is told from different POVs. it's the kinda book that makes me wish i was back in college so i could write a paper about it. i hope you like it! also vera caspary sounds like a really interesting person and apparently wrote a ton.

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message 2: by Jenny

Oct 06, 2012 01:09AM

Thanks Ben! It's one of my favorite all time movies but I had no idea the book it is based on is by a woman! I love that Femme Fatale series and will order it subito. Can't wait to read it.

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message 1: by Ben

Oct 05, 2012 11:38PM

jenny mcphee! have you read Laura? i think you might really like it!

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