June Books

[slemslempike]

June
Ramage's Diamond - Dudley Pope
Cherry Ames at Hilton Hospital - Helen Wells
The Angel Makers - Jessica Gregson
Katharine Goes to School - Winifred Darch
Hostages to Fortune - Elizabeth Cambridge
Laura's Summer Ballet - Linda Blake
Miss Mole - E.H. Young
Stone Butch Blues - Leslie Feinberg
Flying Under Bridges - Sandi Toksvig
Whistling for the Elephants - Sandi Toksvig
Someone From a Distance - Dorothy Whipple
The World Which Was Ours - Hilda Bernstein
Love Rules - Freya North
Flashman and the Dragon - George Macdonald Fraser
Helen, Ballet Student - Linda Graeme
Pyrates - George Macdonald Fraser (only read half)
Cecil of the Carnations - Winifred Darch
Cecily Bassett, Patrol Leader - Winfred Darch
Dorothy's Dilemma - Elsie Jeanette Oxenham

Suddenly had a Winifred Darch-heavy month, as I bought a few on ebay. I like Darch, her stories tend to be quite funny as well as well-written, and very relaxing. Things come out right in the end. I just got delivery of another one, so I shall continue that. Next month is probably going to be a month of EJO, with all the transcripts I've now acquired. I was thinking that I didn't like her as much as I thought, but I think it's the ones I've been reading. I didn't think much of Dorothy's Dilemma. One selfish child, one saintly child, and see what happens. I've started The Reformation of Jinty, which I prefer, although Jinty drives me absolutely batty with her lack of forethought. I also picked up my copy of The Abbey Girls, and that one's much better. I like the depiction of Joan in that, and it's a shame she went all Madge when she grew up.

Stone Butch Blues had the biggest impact on me, I think. It was absoultely incredible. That and The World Which Was Ours had me sobbing in public because they were so moving. It was the larger issues - sad books are good, but having the whole lgbt rights movement, and the anti-apartheid stuff to think about at the same time was overwheming. In an excellent way.

I had a hard time getting into Miss Mole, but once I did it was great. A novel about a servant who is intelligent, and leads her own life outside the family she works for. I don't think I've read a book about a servant from their point of view before - I kept contrasting it to things like Gran-Nannie, where it's definitely about The Family's relationship to the person, and how the thing of privileged family retainer assumes that the life of the family completely subsumes the individual. I suppose Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day comes closer. I know I enjoyed Someone From a Distance but I can't for the life of me remember what it's about. Oh! It was about a family who is broken up when the scheming French companion moves in on the husband. That simplifies it greatly - it's much subtler than I make it sound. I think I did have a few problems with the disapproval of Louise, but then so did the author, I think. I loved Flying Under Bridges (reminded me of a film I saw once which was about a group of women who had never met before and stabbed a shop owner to death with some coathangers, and then their attorney tries to find out what motivated it, and ends up laughing in the courtroom), but wasn't as keen on Whistling for the Elephants. In both of them I liked the gender stuff. The Angel Makers was one of my best reads. I'm going to get my mum to read it, I think, and then I can talk to her about it.

I've run out of 'easy reads' in Manchester, so either I will have to investigate the library again, or plough through some challenges until I go home for my mum's birthday thing in a few weeks.

Comments

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD that may be the most exciting thing ever. You treat my book like a Real Book! I kiss you.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

It is a proper book! And a damn sight better than some other books I've read this year.

[protoainsley.livejournal.com]

Hey! So do I! (http://www.livejournal.com/users/meganberrieh/90315.html#cutid1) And yet you don't kiss me. I'm sad. I never get any action.

I was coming here to leave a comment about it, so you may want to not read the rest of the comments, for fear of ego expansion.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

I KISS YOU, TOO. For some reason I never noticed that - probably got lost in the list as I certainly wasn't looking for it.

*head swells*

[protoainsley.livejournal.com]

Since you're ego's gotten a boost today, read what we said about you farther down to take you from cloud four to cloud seven.

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

With me it's not so much that Joan went Madge when she got older... she never got spineless and simpery, as Madge seems to do in the Armishire and Island books... it's that Joan simply disappears! It's one of the reasons I adore Play Up, because she is there. And I think (although it's been ages since I read it) that she's in Abbey Champion a reasonable amount. But mostly I just miss her in those later books. But then, I always liked Joan far better than Joy...

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

She does have her personality forgotten though, and only really gets dragged in as "owner of the Abbey", as Maedge gets dragged in as "owner of the School" more often than not. Although I will confess that I haven't read my Abbeys in a while, so I might be misremembering. I like Joan better too, especially as Joy's childish annoyances get worse as she grows up.

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

Joy's childish annoyances get worse as she grows up.

I think this is why the Twins don't annoy me as much as they annoy a lot of people. I keep saying to myself "just look at their mother!" (I was so looking forward to Joy's New Adventure, but (as usual) she's just so heedless and thoughtless that it's annoying me.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Yes, she does have a fairly large role in Abbey Champion (I've just read it), but she's still just swwtly supporting and encouraging from the sidelines rather than doing anything. You don't get a sense of what sort of person she is at all.

[protoainsley.livejournal.com]

It's been a year since I read The Angel Makers, and it's really stuck with me. Most books don't do that--I read too fast, and too much, for most books to remain truly distinct. It stands apart, both with the subject and the writing. It was one of the five best I read last year, no doubt.

She uses language in this precise way that I envy. I like my language to be sharp, like the Chinese knives that have you in pieces before you know you've been cut because the blades are that finely honed. There was a word on the first page that was jarring it seemed so out of place, but the more I stared the more it became precisely the right word--it NEEDED to jar. Reading the whole thing I never lost that sense that every word was a piece of art, composed with the eye of a master.

(I really hope she takes my advice and doesn't read this.)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Yes, precise is exactly the right word! I agree with everything you've written, and I wish I'd been able to express myself as well as that. I had a great sense of pride when reading it - that no matter how much you sympathised with Sari, she wouldn't let you pity her.