October Books

[slemslempike]

David at King's - E.F. Benson
The Getting of Wisdom - Henry Handel Richardson
Bad Alice - Jean Ure
Dear Teddy Robinson - Joan G Robinson
Ruby Parker Hits the Small Time - Rowan Coleman
Number 10 - Sue Townsend
The Cutting Edge - Penelope Gilliatt
Crewe Train - Rose Macaulay
Juliet and the Chalet School - Caroline German
Candide - Voltaire
Jessi and the Dance School Phantom - Ann M Martin
Playing the Moldovans at Tennis - Tony Hawks
Good Daughters - Mary Hocking
Ant and Dec - The Biography
Hitler's Canary - Sandi Toksvig
It Just Occured to Me - Humphrey Lyttleton
Ready or Not - Meg Cabot
Indifferent Heroes - Mary Hocking
Welcome Strangers - Mary Hocking

Ant and Dec's biography was rubbish. It was basically someone reading through interviews they'd done over the years and cobbling together information from that, very repetitive and dull. Humphrey Lyttleton's memoirs on the other hand were magnificent. He writes all over the place as things, well, occur, to him, and so you get little bits about recording isihac, his thoughts on grammar, being in the army for WW2, stories about people like Duke Ellington, playing trumpet on a record for Radiohead, and just being wonderful. There's even a recipe. I also enjoyed Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, which hooked me despite my lack of interest in football, tennis, and really Moldova except in a vague manner. It's not side-splitting or anything, but I kept giggling and it was very pleasant.

The Mary Hocking trilogy was really good. It reminded me a lot of the Cazalets series in some ways, following a family through the second world war. Also the eldest girl is called Louise, and wants to be an actress, which is enough for me to decide a comparison. Candide was mostly bizarre, but had very informative notes. It's like crack-fic about philosophy. I liked Crewe Train as well, though the ending made me feel very cramped. I am not at all like Denham, wanting to be left alone to get on with it, but Macaulay does make me sympathise completely with her.

When I started reading Hitler's Canary I was a little put off my the style of the prose, it seemed very passive, but then it is supposed to be being retold from quite a distance, so I suppose it does work. It's about Denmark under Nazi occupation, and the movement to help the Jewish Danes escape. It made me cry at the end, where Sandi explains the real life things it's based on. (Except I was slightly annoyed that she said she thought of writing the book because she told her son the family stories, and thought that "other boys" might also enjoy it. God knows girls never like stories about bravery.)

Ready or Not - I guess I was pleasantly surprised when Sam had sex (because most YA novels, especially American ones, I read involving sex are all "I guess you make your own decisions, but I think you should wait", rather than because sex is intrinsically fantastic), but the whole SAT words thing was SO ANNOYING. One of her characters is having tutoring to get her grades up and has to memorise words, so Sam keeps doing things like "I was kind of ambivalent (SAT word meaning "in two minds") about it" and really, it reads like she got criticism for her books using such simple language, and instead of using more unusual (and evocative) words in context and trusting her readers to work out what they meant from that, deciding that she was a textbook writer manque.

Juliet of the Chalet School is now one of my favourite fill-ins. I forget how much I like the Tyrol books because I got them all so early in collecting that I haven't had celebratory acquisition rereads recently, and they somehow get overlooked when I pick a random book to read. But the atmosphere is so nice and calm (in between floods and mountain rescues), and while I love the administrative paraphenalia of classes and timetables when the school is large, it's nice to see how they manage with fewer people. The introduction of Miss Wilson was good, and I really liked how she incorporated Evadne's snow-blindness into the story.

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed at that coming from Ms Toksvig. I read the start of the book in the Charing Cross Road Borders and would like to finish it.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I guess she was thinking about it through talking to her son only, but it's still very odd that that extrapolates to "boys" and not "children". The main character is a boy (in fact most of them are...) but it doesn't seem particularly marketed to boys. I do recommend it anyway though.

[tornyourdress.livejournal.com]

I liked Ready Or Not. Because really, I don't think teenagers have actually had happy-positive-sex in YA fiction since... Judy Blume's Forever? If that even counts.

Must read Candide.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I liked that part of the plot, but not the execution. Also, the president is clearly not Jed Bartlett, and that's just confusing!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I thought Bad Alice was good but rather dark. I can't remember if I've written about it or of it was in The Month That Got Away.

BTW I've just sold you a Pippa book; hope you like it. Rats, you could have had it off-eBay.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Yes! I read it last night and enjoyed it immensely. I thought it was your ebay shop, but couldn't quite remember. Another time I will ask you directly.

I liked Bad Alice too, but rather dark as you say. I liked the rewrites of Alice in Wonderland.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

I've very glad to hear that Humph continues to be such a star. I'm going to nab that book as soon as possible.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

He is BRILL. Would you like to borrow it, or will you wait until you can have it all your own?

I posted the cheque to you today. I really am incredibly sorry that it took me so long.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

Thank you muchly for the offer, but I shall probably cave in and buy it pretty soon anyway. And thanks for doing the chequing, but really it's fine. There was no hurry or owt. I'll be starting on the lovely Pooter book in due course by the way, once I've got some Jane Austen out of the way. I shouldn't really be thinking of some Jane Austen as a thing to be got out of the way. But there you go.

[gair.livejournal.com]

What did you think of The Getting of Wisdom? It was on Gerald's 'requirements for staying in this relationship' reading list - I liked it a lot, but only really remember the stuff I learned about her from it, rather than the book itself. (She loves it - I think it might be her favourite becoming-a-writer Bildungsroman [if that's what that word means, I'm never sure] ever - but the anti-Semitism makes her sad.)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I think I found it a bit distant. Laura's trials were really aching at times though. Sorry - I wish I had an actual reaction to it, but I have no brain left at all. I finally understood a single sentence of Foucault today though.