May Books

[slemslempike]

May Books
Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years - Michael Palin
False Colours - Georgette Heyer
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
Virginia Andrews - Flowers in the Attic
Graham Greene - The Heart of the Matter
Lee Child - The Killing Floor
Lee Child - Die Trying
Dara O'Briain - Tickling the English
Grace Allen Hogarth - The Funny Guy
Georgette Heyer - The Reluctant Widow
Georgette Heyer - The Foundling
Ruth Park - Playing Beatie Bow
Lee Child - Tripwire
Graham Greene - Our Man in Havana
Jill Stevens - Anita and the China Figure
AS Byatt - The Children's Book
Georgette Heyer - The Toll-Gate
Bridgid Lowry - With Lots of Love from Georgia
Margery Allingham - Police at the Funeral
Clement Freud - Grimble and Grimble at Christmas
Ian Fleming - Diamonds are Forever
Jane Duncan - My Friend Muriel
Natalie Joan - One Summer Holiday
Sandra Cisneros - The House on Mango Street
Lee Child - The Visitor
Marcia Martin - Doinna Parker Takes a Giant Step
Wallace Steyner - Crossing to Safety
Julian Barnes - Letters from London 1990-1995
Anthony Buckeridge - Jennings Goes to School
Giles Milton - Nathaniel's Nutmeg
Julian Barnes - Letters from London 1990-1995
Edna Lake - The Merry Five and "Toronto"
Cynthia Harnett - Ring Out Bow Bells!
Noel Streatfeild - Ballet Shoes
Eliot Schreter - The School for Dangerous Girls

Isn't Michael Palin lovely? He also thinks that lots of other people are lovely, according to his diaries, but because he is lovely it doesn't come across as cloying, but rather... lovely. Interesting accounts of the relationships between the various individuals and subsets of Pythons, particularly John Cleese's dissociation from the groups, and an absolutely fascinating account of envisioning and filming The Life of Brian.

Georgette Heyer! Very good. I must, at some point, find one of those lists people make of which to avoid and avoid them when I want something nice and funny and good. In False Colours there are twins. One comes home unexpectedly and the other is missing, so Kit (the one who came home) pretends to be his brother so that there is not social disaster at his (the missing brother's) meeting of the fiancee's family. Exasperating mother in debt, but the love interest is cool. I very much enjoyed The Reluctant Widow's sarcasm for her love interest, who inveigled her into marrying a dying man and inheriting his fortune, nearly getting her murdered for state secrets in the process. And I have to say that my first instinct upon discovering the man who abducted me and tried to get my cousin to pay for my murder would not be to install him in my household or pay him off, but The Foundling hero differed. The Toll-Gate went all very murder mystery at the end, but better than the actual Heyer murder mysteries that I have read.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime is deservedly talked about. Flowers in the Attic is NOT. What a horrible book. I felt rather disgusting after having read it, and I am very glad that I did not read it as a teenager as I think it would have rather captivated me.

I have never read any Graham Greene before this year, I think, and I am rather enjoying it. The Heart of the Matter was rather sad, things nearly coming right and then it all going wrong. I enjoyed the one-sided friendship between the crook and the policeman. I probably prefered Our Man in Havana, which is something I was surprised to learn was about a vaccuum salesman on a book quiz tv show a while ago. Apparently Greene divided his work into categories, and Our Man in Havana is an amusement/entertainment. I was.

OH JACK REACHER. Lee Child is a GENIUS. This unfortunately has the knock-on effect that his books are not all that easy to pick up secondhand here, and I quail at spending the equivalent of GBP 14 on a small paperback. I do not, however, quail at spending an entire afternoon of my holiday in a library reading the next one in the series to get my fill, which is how I read Echo Burning. Jack Reacher is an ex-Military Policeman, and he has a toothbrush and NO ROOF (anymore). I have been aware of Jack Reacher for a while because sometimes Jen talks about how awesome he is, and oh my god she is right. (That is not a surprise.) He is very tall and very big and I was in showers in hostels with sort of lids on, and I think about how that would not do for Jack Reacher, because mostly showerheads are not tall enough for him. It is quite difficult to think self-insert fantasies about Jack Reacher because I could not be of any earthly use to him, and so the only sensible thing for him to do in a situation (he spends most of his life in situations) is to jettison me at the first opportunity. He would be right to do so, he does what is right. In the last book I read he is sort of following the example of a man who never killed anyone who didn't deserve it, and then it turns out that that man was an amoral gun-happy fool, but the example of this given is that he once shot a man he was bunking with just because he didn't like him snoring. ENTIRELY REASONABLE.

I was pretty disappointed with Tickling the English. It was kind of a lot of Dara O'Briain jokes transferred to the page, where they work less well. It was disjointed, just anecdotes not tied together other than a nominal following him around the country, but the observations were rather dull, and I wouldn't really recommend it. Though I gave it to someone for Christmas last year, I think, so hopefully they disagree.

The Funny Guy is an American children's book about a girl who is teased/bullied a lot at school and called the funny guy, but not in a friendly way. Her mom is ill in hospital, and she writes compositions for a magazine that don't get accepted. She gets a friend, which is great, and sort of accidentally ends up defrauding a hospital, which is less nice. Playing Beatie Bow was really wonderful. I desperately wanted it all to work out right at the end, but I was so glad that Beatie became a feared schoolteacher.Anita and the China Figure was not good. I found it on a hostel bookshelf and as it was girlsowny thought I should, but it was pretty dull, and predictable.

I thought that The Children's Book was simply wonderful. It has made me want to take up pottery (though emphatically not to make pervy pots of my daughters). I liked the structure of following the families through, and how they entertwined with each other and with real people and events from the time. It's a time I like to read about anyway, and the description of the summer schools made me want to attend. (I don't want to attend summer schools now, only in the early 20th century.)

With Lots of Love from Georgia has lists, I think, and a girl that gets a nice boy.

I don't like Margery Allingham much. I think it's that I don't read Campion as anything out of the ordinary until she claims that he says perfectly ordinary things "idiotically", and I don't know why that should be so.

Clement Freud is great. Grimble and Grimble at Christmas was absolutely his voice, with a silly yet logical story of absentminded parents and Grimble's life. Though a little sexist in several places.

James Bond swears in "-------"s! That was very entertaining. I haven't actually seen many Bond films, but I thought I should read a Bond book. I don't mind if I do again, and I don't mind if I don't.

My Friend Muriel - great! I am going to make a concerted effort to read all the My Friend books. I wish she was My Friend.

One Summer Holiday. Something really annoyed me about this book and I cannot remember what it was.

I really liked The House on Mango Street. It looked a little like short stories, which I am not drawn to, but was charming and sad and evocative and made me want to read more of her work.

The title of Donna Parker Takes a Giant Step is utterly misleading. It suggests that something might actually happen, and it doesn't, it drones on with her occasionally forgetting things and other people occasionally forgetting things and learning all about responsibility.

Crossing to Safety is about two male American academics and their wives, and how one couple flourishes, and how one somewhat falters.

I am fairly sure that I must have read at least one Jennings book before, and parts of Jennings Goes to School seemed familiar, but they were never part of my childhood. I enjoyed this very much - the patient intelligence of Mr Carter, all the boys' various plans and ignorances.

I wasn't expecting to be very engrossed in Nathaniel's Nutmeg and I wasn't. Self-fulfilling prophecy? or rather dull subject matter not helped by prose style?

Letters from London 1990-1995 is one of the best books about the UK I've read. Partly it helped that it covers a time when I mostly didn't live in the UK or wasn't really paying attention, so it was new and interesting. And it wasn't about how quaint or disgusting the British are, but about politics and explaining it to interested Americans. The index entries were delightful.

The Merry Five and "Toronto" was another hostel bookshelf girlsown find that turned out turgid. Toronto is their dog. Their father is missing, but their new next door neighbour in the big house knows where he is after they discover a pipe.

I should definitely read more Cynthia Harnett. Ring Out Bow Bells! was ace. It reminded me rather of AF's historicals, not really the style, but the use of real events and the telling of a story that doesn't seem at all anachronistic but is also not stuffy or stilted. I think I probably have unfounded prejudices against children's historical fiction that I should sort out.

I love Ballet Shoes. I remember my mum reading it to me as a bedtime story, and I loved it then. I like the illustrations, and the inclusion of the licenses and the contract with Mr Simpson for the necklaces. The detail is wonderful, and all the technical details about the running of stage schools and auditioning. I love the cut off names on the doors so that the girls go through the door marked "Children's Aca" (I don't remember the exact divisions, though I bet someone does). I can't wait to read The Witcharts.

The School for Dangerous Girls was really good. Bad girls are sent to a reform school, where they are watched and sorted. The gold thread girls get to go to school and have lessons and more freedom and friendships. Purple thread girls are locked in a hall with hammocks and pretty much encouraged to terrorise each other. One of the gold thread girls is borderlline, and gets herself sent to purple thread where she leads a rebellion and gets the school closed down.

Comments

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

I love the My Friend books passionately! There's an LJ community for her books(lj comm="my_friend_jane"> and the most recent post has info about the centenary celebrations. My Friends the Miss Boyds is being re-published. I hope they re-publish more of them. And yes, read them all - it's one heck of a journey.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

debodacious writes about them lovingly, and we used to sell a lot when I worked in a bookshop. I think I've read Miss Boyds, and I liked that too. But grown-up Janet grabbed me more.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad you liked Playing Beattie Bow! I haven't read it in years but it is SO GOOD. And Judah (that is his name, isn't it?) was one of my earliest book crushes; I think he stands the test of time better than Sebastian from the Wells books.

Have you read any of Ruth Park's adult novels? The Harp in the South and Poor Man's Orange are both just wonderful, and it is suddenly making me FULL OF WOE that I don't have copies of either. And her memoirs are also fantastic - A Fence Around the Cuckoo and Fishing in the Styx.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

It was great! I generally do not go for timeslip books, though I do like Charlotte Sometimes, and it was all great. Judah it is, but I am not that struck with him. Probably I would have been as a child. I haven't read any of her adult novels, so I shall have to find them out.

[slightlyfoxed.livejournal.com]

I have some Jennings if you would like to read more. They were my main school-story source as a youngster, as my father liked them (he also liked Just William but I never got into them).

I've just noticed that one of my favourite books as a kid was by Antonia Forest (Peter's Room). Very odd - I had seen her dicussed all over the place and not connected it. I now want to read the others but they seem to cost 20 quid each secondhand, so I will be stalking them through libraries.

[gair.livejournal.com]

OHGOD YOU WILL LOVE ANTONIA FOREST SHE IS ACTUALLY A GENIUS. This is why the books cost such stupid amounts second-hand - £20 is pretty good, I have seen the 2000-odd reprint of Peter's Room go for £50 (and we paid £75 for The Thursday Kidnapping, her only non-Marlow book, in a fit of flushness). Good luck tracking them down.

slemslempike, when is The School for Dangerous Girls from? It sounds AWESOME.

[slightlyfoxed.livejournal.com]

Oh dear (on the cost). I still have Peter's Room, though, so can reread.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Autumn Term is very easy to get so don't let anyone charge you more than about £3.00 for a paperback. B****y miserable book it is. The Cricket Term is my favourite but it helps if you like and understand cricket.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

All I know about cricket I learned from The Cricket Term and Murder Must Advertise and the Cricket Term is still my favourite Forest.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Why do you say Autumn Term is miserable? Depressing, or not good? I like it a lot, though it is a bit everything-going-wrong.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Depressing rather than bad. I just don't like it!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

ACTUAL GENIUS YES.

It is recent, last few years or so, an American book. I do really recommend - I think you would probably enjoy it a lot and I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. I found it in a library in Christchurch with time to kill (and no Reachers) so I read it. Good happenstance.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Thank you - they seem to be easy enough to get hold of in libraries (though I don't know how much they're updated) - I think I shall definitely be reading more.

Peter's Room! Yay another AF child. When I am back you are very welcome to borrow from me, I have them all. I do hope you also like the others, I'm sure you will.

Who did you like best from Peter's Room when you were a kid?

[slightlyfoxed.livejournal.com]

Thank you for offer! I'm afraid I can't remember who I liked - I think as it was only one book (that I knew) I liked the idea best, the characters were just necessary to play it out.

I believe that one reprint of Jennings - MacMillan in 1994 - tried unsuccessfully to modernise it a bit, so avoid that.

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

Flowers in the Attic is NOT. What a horrible book. I felt rather disgusting after having read it, and I am very glad that I did not read it as a teenager as I think it would have rather captivated me.

I read it when I was ten, and I thought it was the most amazing thing I had ever read (well, it was following on from The Sheep Pig, bit different), and the sequels devastated me. I read it again later in my teens and still loved it. I cannot imagine what I would think of it now, or if I could still hold onto the idea that it was actually good...

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Ha! The Sheep Pig to Flowers in the Attic, what a journey! What are the sequels like? More incest/rape/attics?

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

The second one has them taken in by a kindly doctor, who Cathy starts a relationship with. I think he's in his 40s? She also has a relationship with a male ballet dancer, and tries to seduce her mother's boyfriend, and succeeds. (ish, she ends up with two sons, one from each of those 'romances', but possibly back with kind doctor in the end?) And she burns down the evil house.

The third one was quite boring, as it's told from her sons' perspectives. The fourth one has them return to a replica of the house that her youngest son has built as he is obsessed with his grandmother or something, so they all traipse back for some weird family reunion. I may be making this up now...but there is more incest as Cathy and Chris have denied their feelings for each other for years but now give in and in their 50s live as husband and wife, which really pisses off young son and leads to all sorts of problems. And it does end in the attic, which old Cathy has been decorating like they did when they were kids.

Yes, I was slightly obsessed with these books as a teen, can you tell?

Oh! And there's a prequel! In which you learn why the grandmother was so awful, and that Cathy's mother and father weren't half uncle and niece (or whatever it was) but in fact half brother and sister! MORE INCEST!!

This may be more than you wanted to know...

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

So, so happy that you have discovered Reacher. There are so many of them! I have two left to read, I think, until I'm just waiting for Lee Child to write more.

Lady Antonia Fraser is also totally into them. Harold Pinter could not understand it at all. It makes me so happy to know this.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I have read the first five, and it will be a struggle not to succumb and buy the rest even at NZ pricing.

That's great! Oh, I love that Harold Pinter couldn't get Reacher. Though I would like to read a Pinteresque parody of Reacher.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I love Michael Palin's diaries. They are the kind of book you can read when you are in hospital without being either overwhelmed by grimness or irritated by twee fantastickating.

I had a friend who was very into the Flowers In The Attic books when we were about fourteen and who explained the plots of them all to me, so I never felt I had to read them.

I read Margery Allingham pretty much entirely for the atmosphere - when she gets it right it's incredibly cinematic, but when she doesn't it's all a bit dull. Is Police At The Funeral the one with all the snobbery in Oxford?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Police At The Funeral is the house in Oxford where they are stuck in the 1890s, and there is an uncouth cousin.

[joyeuce]

Cynthia Harnett is wonderful, and grossly under-rated. The Woolpack and A Load of Unicorn are even better than Ring Out Bow Bells! IMHO; The Writing on the Hearth, the other vaguely connected one, is less good and harder to get hold of (and was illustrated by someone else, grr), but parts of it stuck in my head for years in between reading it from the school library and finding my own copy. The Great House is very obviously an early effort, but quite sweet; Stars of Fortune is probably my least favourite, but IIRC a nice corrective to the standard "child hero interferes and nothing could possibly go wrong" plot. Would be interested to hear what prejudiced you against children's historical fiction if that's something you ever feel like writing about.

I read Flowers in the Attic and at least some of the sequels as a teen, and still feel disgusting for having done so on the rare occasions when I think about them!

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

I didn't like historical fiction much as a child but I did like Cynthia Harnett. Load of Unicorn was my favourite because it was about making books and being from Essex, I knew where Mucking was and it made me feel superior. I found a copy in a charity shop last Sunday and have been throwing it at the 8 year-old, who is moaning that at the end of half term she has Run Out of Books but she doesn't look convinced and is re-reading Malory Towers instead.

[joyeuce]

Sorry, I misunderstood and thought you were new to Harnett. When I first read them I think I barely knew where the Isle of Wight was (though that's Woolpack, I think)! Can't remember how old I was when I first read them, probably more than 8 as we didn't get to use the school library much until we were 10, but anyway I very rarely accepted anyone's recommendations as a child - is your 8-year-old the same?

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Well I'm not slemslemspike and was butting in on your question to her so sorry for confusion.

I have tried not to force books on the 8 year-old because it always put me off as a child too but then she comes and asks me to suggest things (we have the world's smallest library and the nearest bookshop is an hour's bus journey) and I tend to chuck a pile at her so the choice is still hers. Swallows and Amazons was "too full of like boats" apparently.

[joyeuce]

Argh! Must learn to read comments properly. Sorry.

Offering a pile of books to choose from sounds like a good compromise. Wish my mother had thought of that!

[whatho.livejournal.com]

You read Jennings' Little Hut (I think) at my house.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Aha! I thought I had done something of the sort. Good.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked Playing Beatie Bow! I would feel bad if it turned out not to be as good as I remembered. Ruth Park's adult stuff is very good too, though she spends a lot of time in her memoirs on the Essential Depressingness of NZ and the Great Superiority of Australia as expressed through weather. (Looking out the window right now, I have to admit she has a point about the weather.)

Coincidentally, I am reading The Toll-Gate right now. I know I've read it, but I'd completely forgotten the plot.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Yes, the weather is certainly not the high point of my holiday. Thankfully there are numerous other things to recommend it.

And thank you for recommending Playing Beatie Bow!

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

Letters From a Faint-Hearted Feminist was awesome, by the way, so thank you for recommending that! There had better be more, though, because it just sort of stopped and I was sad.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

There is a sequel called "More from Martha", which is sometimes included in LFAFHF, so you may have already read it. If not - also good!

[anglaisepaon.livejournal.com]

I love Sandra Cisneros! And I've met her! You're welcome to take her Women Hollering Creek home with you, if you'd like.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Cool! And was it you that told me a story about someone painting her house all cool colours and the neighbours initially being sniffy but then following suit? Was that about her? (If it wasn't you that told me the story I imagine that the second question will be difficult to answer.)

[anglaisepaon.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was me! And it was her purple house in Alamo Heights that made people in the neighborhood decide to stand behind her. She rocks.