wrapped up in books

[fahye]

Sylar list (whose brains would I like to steal?):

#% Chuck Palahniuk
#% Tom Robbins
#% Peter Hoeg
% Michael Ondaatje
% Julian Barnes
# Scarlett Thomas
# William Gibson

# = ideas
% = style

Books that have made me think about something in a new way:

The End Of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas
Written On The Body by Jeanette Winterson
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
The Golden Globe by John Varley
The Woman and the Ape by Peter Hoeg

Guilty pleasures, or those that feel like them:

Threshold by Sara Douglass
Good Omens (of course!) by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Larklight by Philip Reeve
Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
The Pagan series by Catherine Jinks

Favourite srs bsns books (thanks, Becca):

Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Shakespeare, obvs, but notably Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest or Hamlet
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Angels in America by Tony Kushner

Favourite children's books:

Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet & Allan Ahlberg
45 + 47 Stella Street And Everything That Happened and Fiddleback by Elizabeth Honey
Halfway Across The Galaxy And Turn Left by Robin Klein
The Battersea series by Joan Aiken:
- The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
- Black Hearts in Battersea
- Night Birds on Nantucket
- The Cuckoo Tree
- The Stolen Lake
- Dido and Pa
- Is
- Cold Shoulder Road

Oh man. I really want to reread the Joan Aiken books now. Has anyone else read them? Is anyone up for girlish handwaving about Simon and Sophie and Dido and how fucking awesome those books are?

Comments

[liminalliz.livejournal.com]

*glees about the fact that William Gibson is on your list!!*

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Man, Patten Recognition had a HUGE impact on me! I can't belive you haven't finished it, you fool of a Took.

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

The Battersea series by Joan Aiken:

YES!! I've been trying to track down my own copies to buy, but they don't seem to be in print any more. Woe.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

I think some of them are if you know where to look: I picked up a brand new book that had both Is and Cold Shoulder Road from the Co-op about a month ago, and they had The Stolen Lake as well. The publication date is 2005; hopefully they released the whole series?

[skygiants]

Oh man. I read those, but so long ago I don't remember anything about any of them, except that they were awesome, and there was a . . . secret child-slavery mine in one of them? Is, maybe?

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Yes! Is has child slavery in it. And Black Hearts in Battersea has a gunpowder plot and hot air balloons, and The Stolen Lake has immortality witchcraft, and Dido and Pa has plots to replace the King with an imposter and Night Birds in Nantucket is set on a whaling ship and I KNOW there's one where all these artists and scientists get kidnapped and sent to an island somewhere, I think that might be Black Hearts again...

*takes breath*

They are SO. GREAT. Especially watching Simon go from this kid who lives in a cave with wolves to being spoiler spoiler spoiler! And DIDO, who was my unwashed and feisy London streetbrat hero.

[skygiants]

Oh, I remember the whaling ship too! And The Stolen Lake is where they go off and chill with foreign royalty, right?

. . . and it seems that the school library has Wolves of Willoughby Chase, but only a non-circulating edition in the rare books collection. Which, in one sense, very cool, but in another sense, FAIL.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

I think 'going off and chilling with royalty' is kind of Dido's job description. Stumble across plot, get knocked on head once or twice, make friends with urchins, thwart plot, chill with royalty.

I saw a pinch-hit request go past for Yuletide that included Simon Battersea/Dido Twite. If someone writes that I will be SO EXCITED.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

Peach Pear Plum??? You know where my brain is going.

We have weirdly little overlap.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

I have no clue what actually falls under 'srs bsns'. Probably a lot more than just Austen and Greene.

EACH PEACH PEAR PLUM is a nursery rhyme of sorts, and this is the absolute best picture book to have ever been made. It's probably British. It has PEEPHOLES and very intricate drawings of all the different nursery rhyme characters and little visual puzzles. It's great. I adored it as a kid, and I adored reliving it when Rob and Lauren were at the right age as well.

[lilyfarfalla.livejournal.com]

...there are books that come after The Wolves of Willoughby Chase?

I'm.....clearly going to have to take some time off from school to catch up.

SERIOUSLY?!?!

[fahye.livejournal.com]

YES. YES. Oh, man, you are going to have a great time.

[deutscheami.livejournal.com]

Oh man so Pattern Recognition is basically my favorite book ever, and that really means something because I have a lot of books that I love-- I just love Pattern Recognition more than the others.

I can't even really articulate why I like it so much beyond it made me see the world through an entirely different lens-- and the language. Gibson is the prose equivalent of chrome and speed.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Have you read The Golden Globe? I think you'd like it a lot.

[littledust.livejournal.com]

:D! Someone else who is fond of Romeo & Juliet. (That is all.)