feather_ghyll

The Secret Country: Pamela Dean, Firebird (Penguin), 2003

This is Volume One of the Secret Country trilogy, first published in the 80s, and as it ends at a satisfying resting point, but with much left unresolved, I’m looking forward to finding out what happens next. Dean is the author of ‘Tam Lin’, which adapted and updated the ballad, setting the story at an American college in the 1970s, and which I rated very highly. (I’ve also read ‘The Dubious Hills’ by her, but not posted about it.)

Readers of children’s fantasy books will be familiar with the concept ( Read more... )

The Sword Bearer (Book 3 of the Archives of Anthropos): John White, Minstrel, 1989

As hinted in the last few books in this series, ( Read more... )

The Tower of Geburah: John White. Kingsway Publications, 1985

Rereading this book as an adult was a singular experience for me, as it had been read aloud to me as a child, so some names and phrases were ringing in my ears as I reread them now. ‘The Tower of Geburah’ belongs to the subgenre of fantasy children’s books that takes the Christian allegory of the Narnia books as its model. If you want to use shorthand, you might call it Narnia for the TV generation. ( Read more... )

Curtsies and Conspiracies: Gail Carriger Atom, 2013
Finishing School Book the Second

I probably write the same thing whenever I'm commenting on reading a book in a series, but it is too long since I read the previous book in this series and I hope there won’t be as long a period between this and the next, most especially because this exceeded my high expectations. I truly think it’s a step up from the introduction to the world that was Etiquette and Espionage.

( Read more... )

The last of what I read in Belgium:

Rest and Be Thankful by Helen MacInnes ( Read more... )

The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbary (translated by Alison Anderson) ( Read more... )

The BFG (2016) (PG)

Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Adapted by: Melissa Mathison
From the book by: Roald Dahl
Starring: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Jemaine Clement, Penelope Wilton
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3691740/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

This year is the centenary of Roald Dahl’s birth, which has affected me less than I would have believed as a child when I devoured his books and loved them. ( Read more... )

I know it's been a while, perhaps this post will explain why. Having just finished her Touch Not the Cat, I was looking forward to reading Mary Stewart’s A Walk in Wolf Wood, but it took me about a week and a half to do so – this is odd for me, as I was reminded when I devoured the nest book that I read in two sittings, interrupted only by a night’s sleep. I didn’t have the same desire to read on with Wolf Wood. I’d force myself to read a chapter and put the book down, and although I was busy and tired from being busy since I begun the book, I had little compulsion to pick it up and read it until I was on a train and had finished my other reading material (newspaper, magazine). Now, I’ve read and reread (or would lapped up be more apt?) all of Stewart’s suspense novels for adults over the years – not the Arthurian novels though. Off the top of my head The Moon-Spinners and Nine Coaches Waiting would be my favourite. So, when I saw that she’d written a book for children, I was intrigued and bought it. I decided to read it having enjoyed rereading Touch Not the Cat (and there’s a whole other enjoyment in rereading it and not wondering who ‘Ashley’ is – I was puzzled and misdirected in the first read.

But having finished Wolf Wood, I won’t be going out of my way to purchase any more Stewarts for children.

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I also managed to tear the dust jacket a little carting this book about when I wasn’t reading it.

In better news, after a bout of rummaging at my parents', I now have got hold of all my Dorothy L. Sayers and Annes and Emilys (so I can reread them) and found Toby of Tibbs Cross, which I knew I had bought and read, but had slipped beneath a bookcase that was itself blocked by boxes. I didn't whoop with joy, but I was grinning for quite a while.

Inkheart: Cornelia Funke (translated by Anthea Bell) The Chicken House 2004 - paperback edition)

This is a book that will make even the most oblivious person about the physical form of a book notice it. I read from a library copy, because I wanted to read it before the film came out. It's the first Chicken House publication I've read - quirkily, the back suggests that you 'Read it! Try page 89' (I only noticed this after passing that point. I don't know if page 89 was particularly enticing).

This is very much a book for bookworms and about bibliophilia.( Read more... )