Early on in “Educating Rita” the heroine characterizes Howards End as “one crap book.”   When I heard that line, I mentally crossed Howards End off my books-to-read list.    Rita is a funny and engaging character so if she said the book was crap, then crap it must be.  Ten years later, I saw the Merchant-Ivory film and realized I might have been hasty.  More than twenty years have lapsed since then and I am still rereading Howards End, both on paper and as an e-book.  It’s a best friend of a book and I can’t believe I nearly missed it. Howards End is about many things but mainly its about the connections we have, the connections we make and how they affect our lives.  To begin with, two English sisters named Helen and Margaret Schlegel bump into an English family named Wilcox when they’re all on holiday in Germany.   If these two upper-middle class families had stayed in England, they probably would have stayed strangers since, beyond nationality, they haven’t much in common.  The Schlegels live in London and spend their time supporting progressive causes and the arts, (In American terms they would probably be called liberal elites) because they … Continue reading A place to call home: Howards End