Reading even more

[altariel]

The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth by J.R.R. Tolkien
Tolkien wrote fanfic too (I don’t just mean Unfinished Tales) and this is a sequel to the A-S poem The Battle of Maldon. It’s weird when you come to things. I’ve owned a copy of this for the best part of twelve years, but would have taken nothing from it if I’d read it before. I’d love to see it done on stage.

Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth
Biographical account of Tolkien’s wartime experience and its influence upon his work which is particularly strong on its account of the centrality of the other three members of T.C.B.S. to his early writing. Heart-breaking account of the experiences of the four young men during the war. I found it a little repetitive about its themes towards the end, but would recommend it.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Heh. Hehehe. Oh, I did enjoy this.

Red Riding Quartet by David Peace
Four novels, Nineteen Seventy-Four, Nineteen Seventy-Seven, Nineteen Eighty and Nineteen Eighty-Three about corruption (in its widest sense) in Yorkshire during the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper. Written in a clipped style and very violent, but I don’t think it was ever gratuitous. Just extremely angry. You’re left with a powerful sense of a society gone badly wrong. Nineteen Seventy-Seven, set against the Jubilee, is particularly brilliant.

The Rector’s Daughter by F. M. Mayor
“Mary was plain, middle-aged and reliable. Her life centred on her father, the crabbed and difficult Canon Jocelyn, and on the quiet duties of a rector's daughter deep in the country. She never dreamed that her life was to be shaken to the core by an unlooked-for love affair.” Virginia Woolf (it was first published by the Hogarth Press) thought that this was a minor masterpiece, and who am I to disagree? I need to reread it a few times, and then think about it alongside Persuasion.

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
Enjoyable tosh. Skimmed rather a lot towards the end, and probably won’t hurry out and read the sequels, unless someone wants to recommend a specific one to me.

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
katlinel loaned me the first three. Loved them. Stop it. Anyone seen the film?

Goodnight, Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
the_wild_iris recommended this from the Big Read list, about a little boy evacuated from London during the war, and the effect he has on the old man at whose cottage he is billeted. I found the first half in particular very touching; in the last half, I felt the author had fallen a bit too much in love with her characters (and made the mother a bit too wicked. I am, however, very grumpy.

How to be Good by Nick Hornby
I have a theory that Nick Hornby books are much better as films. With the exception of Fever Pitch. High Fidelity certainly was, although it helped to have John Cusack in it. I haven’t read About a Boy but I liked the film. I wonder what sort of film this would make.

The Tale of Troy by Roger Lancelyn Green
This was what I read instead of The Iliad before going to see Troy. It’s great.

Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery
forodwaith commented when I posted about reading Anne of Green Gables that she preferred Emily of New Moon, and I would agree with her. I loved the description of ‘the flash’, and wish I had read about it when I was younger: “It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside--but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond--only a glimpse--and heard a note of unearthly music.”

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde
I don’t know what it is about these Thursday Next books – I really, really want to enjoy them, but somehow they just don’t work for me. Am I just being a complete git?

Comments

[kathyh]

The Tale of Troy by Roger Lancelyn Green

I think my copy of this fell to bits. I read it over and over again when I was little. Odysseus was my first hero (edging just ahead of Sir Lancelot).

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde
I don’t know what it is about these Thursday Next books – I really, really want to enjoy them, but somehow they just don’t work for me. Am I just being a complete git?

Well, if you are so am I. I read The Eyre Affair on holiday a couple of years ago and I was expecting to love it. Unfortunately I found myself sitting back and admiring the cleverness but not connecting at all with the characters. I think he's just a bit too knowingly clever for me.

[kerravonsen]

I did enjoy "The Eyre Affair" (it was a gift) but I haven't rushed out to get the other two. I think... one has to be in the right mood for it, just as one has to be in the right mood for the cynical cleverness of Douglas Adams, which can be hilarious when it hits you right, and downright irritating when it doesn't.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I've borrowed them all so far. I think you're right about being in the right mood about them. Also, I think there's only so much of a book you can sustain with just jokes, no matter how clever they are. I started longing for the story to start.

[kerravonsen]

The thing that stuck in my brain from The Eyre Affair was the little bit about bananas.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

That one has slipped through my gorgonzola memory.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I had one which I think was called Tales of the Greek Heroes as well.

Consensus seems to be emerging about the Fforde books. They weren't bad for reading on a plane, I'll give them that.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Cold Comfort Farm is an utter joy.

Sugoll bought a new liddle mop the other day. For me, since he uses cloths/scourers only when he washes up. I'm the one that uses a liddle mop.

I've read the first two Fforde books (they were a present last year), and quite enjoyed them, but haven't rushed to read the third. I did feel that they read like a fanfic idea, and similar to one that I'd seen explored elsewhere, mainly in cdybedahl's Librarian series. Not as good or as clever as the author thinks it is, was my thought (of Fforde, not cdybedahl's stuff).

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm the one that uses a liddle mop.

Hee! I have a liddle mop too. But no sukebind.

I suspect you can read one Fforde book and not need to read any more.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
Enjoyable tosh. Skimmed rather a lot towards the end, and probably won't hurry out and read the sequels, unless someone wants to recommend a specific one to me.

Do NOT read any of the sequels. Trust me on this. They can best be summed up as "Ayla meets a Cro-Magnon hottie, and together they revolutionize the world by discovering every important Neolithic invention (along with every sexual position mentioned in the Kama Sutra).

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Mary Sue in Furs?

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

When she's bothering to wear anything, yes.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

*groans*

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm still giggling at the phrase 'Cro-Magnon hottie'.

[kerravonsen]

True, if you didn't like the first one, you probably wouldn't like the later ones. I loved the first one, adored the second one, enjoyed the third, found the fourth rather tedious, and was bored witless by the fifth, and swore not to bother with the sixth, whenever it comes out.

Jean Auel desperately needs a good editor.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I thought the first one was OK, but I did end up skimming an awful lot. Switched too much between exposition and narrative. Sounds like this trend gets worse in later books.

[kerravonsen]

Yeah. I got the feeling in the fifth book that Ms. Auel was saying "I did all this research, dammit, and you are going to sit still and listen to me lecture!"

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Which is fine in an essay or non-fiction book, but less so in a novel.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

I think you've summed up something for me there too - I like her cultural imaginings too, and the detail of how prehistoric domestic life might have been.

I'm likely to read the sixth book too because I want to see how it ends.

[brightbeak.livejournal.com]

Emily of New Moon has 2 sequels:
Emily Climbs & Emily's Quest

LOVED the entire set... then again, i'm from maritimes canada, and spent a few summer vacations in PEI, so i have NO CHOICE :) but seriously, LOVE THEM TO BITS!

my sil's fave is Jane of Lantern Hill

you can get a full listing, and a snippet on each of her heroines, etc., at http://www.tickledorange.com/LMM/

and yes, i read the Emily... books at age 10-11... certainly more quintessential to the canadian girl than the Little House... books, and a slightly harder read too... :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thank you very much for the link, I'll enjoy browsing around there.

My cousin did a special pilgrimage to PEI a couple of years back (my sister was living in B.C. at the time, which gave her the excuse - yes, I know it's a continent away, it was still enough of an excuse! *g*).

I'm sorry I didn't come to them sooner; I read and reread the Little House books constantly as a girl.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I need to find the other two in the series. More second-hand bookshop hunting, that will be a hardship!

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

It took me five years to find them all. I got Emily Climbs ten days back, just before the Great Head Explosion. So good. I'm so glad you've read and liked Montgomery! I'm very sentimentally attached to all those books, although as someone in your rpevious post said, once you get to Rilla of Ingleside the charm wears off a bit.

Amazon might be helpful in the matter of book-buying. Surely they'll make a special effort if you inform them that you happen to be the author of one of the books they're selling? :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

There's a really good children's bookshop here (which has most of the Montgomery books, but they're pricey), and also lots of good second-hand paperback stalls and shops, so hopefully they'll turn up.

the author of one of the books they're selling?

They mispelled my name until I emailed. But changed it very quickly, give them their due.

And how I can miss the opening you gave me: that's two of the books they're selling ;-D

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

'The Princess Diaries' by Meg Cabot
katlinel loaned me the first three. Loved them. Stop it. Anyone seen the film?

I've seen the film. It's not bad. My only beef with it is that the actor who was playing Mia was far too pretty, and that the actor who was playing her best friend should have been playing the lead. The actor who was playing her best friend also played the daughter in Now and Again which was bloody good SF, and showed how good it can be without special effects.

'The Clan of the Cave Bear' by Jean M. Auel
Enjoyable tosh. Skimmed rather a lot towards the end, and probably won’t hurry out and read the sequels, unless someone wants to recommend a specific one to me.

Yes, enjoyable tosh and yes, skimming. My favourite is probably The Mammoth Hunters even thought I think the ending is wrong. I don't actually own Clan of the Cave Bear, but do own the others. As far as I am concerned, Jondalar (cro-Magnon hottie) was the Captain Kirk of his day. I quite like Ayla, who as one character notices later on, just does what she wants most of the time, no matter what other people think. The latest book is terrible, and was not worth waiting 5 years or so for. It's also really just a rehash of TMH. Sadly, lots of the foreshadowing in TMH isn't played out, and she merely resorts to having a stereotyped bitchy female character.

Auel is also notable for writing, imo, the least sexy sex scenes ever.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I've seen the film. It's not bad.

It seems to show a lot on the movie channels, so I'll catch it one night when Mr A. isn't around.

I don't think I'll rush out to read the rest of the Auels, but if I'm stuck somewhere and it's the only option, I won't mind reading them.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much how I got in to Auel. Stuck in Hungerford one Sunday morning, desperate for something to read, no transport, and only the newsagent open.