Books.

Hello!


Are there any book fans here?


I love books they are my absolute fav thing. I have a huge collection of books, some are old and some are new. Probably the oldest I’ve got is early Agatha Christie ones, and, some Charles Dickens ones as well. I’ve read them all many times before and I always go back to them, especially my fav ones! My fav books are the Harry Potter series, Twilight, Narnia Chronicles and Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit! I just bought the last Harry Potter book but with the adorable new cover... Makes a really lovely set.


I spend most of my time reading. I get tired pretty quick but I do still like reading each day. I have a Kindle as well but I prefer physical books. I love the smell that some of the older ones have. It’s one of the few smells that don’t trigger my hyper-sensitivity!

What’s your fav book? What are you reading right now?
Have a beautifully sunny and fabulous day!

Parents
  • I have to use a kindle for fiction now, as there is no more space in my house for more physical books. There are about 5 boxes of books in the loft, still unopened from moving in to the house in 2009. 

    I was first really awakened to fiction when I read Treasure Island aged about seven. If pressed I will still say that it is my favourite book. I read Lord of the Rings at 12, I had about a week of reactive depression when I finished it, because there was no more of it to read. 

    Favourite authors in no particular order: Robert Louis Stevenson, Tolkien, James Joyce, Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance, JP Donleavy, Cordwainer Smith, Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope, Ray Bradbury, Chinua Achebe, Patrick O'Brian, Guy de Maupassant, PG Wodehouse, Cecelia Holland, Brian Aldiss, CS Forester, Alan Garner, David Lodge, Francois Mauriac, George Eliot ...

  • Did you study English Lit Martin?  I did but was not a good student.  I wonder if you've read Joyce's Ulysses (I didn't make it through it...) Also I haven't read any David Lodge except I had his book of essays 'The Art of Fiction' at uni and while I wish I'd appreciated it back then (I don't think I did), I really like parts of it now.

    Wow - I just looked David Lodge up on wikipedia and see one of his books (The British Museum is Falling Down) was inspired by Joyce and Woolf.  I'm going to hunt it down.  I found the much shorter Mrs Dalloway more readable than Ulysses, but I do love the idea of Ulysses just not the actual reading of it. Slight smile

Reply
  • Did you study English Lit Martin?  I did but was not a good student.  I wonder if you've read Joyce's Ulysses (I didn't make it through it...) Also I haven't read any David Lodge except I had his book of essays 'The Art of Fiction' at uni and while I wish I'd appreciated it back then (I don't think I did), I really like parts of it now.

    Wow - I just looked David Lodge up on wikipedia and see one of his books (The British Museum is Falling Down) was inspired by Joyce and Woolf.  I'm going to hunt it down.  I found the much shorter Mrs Dalloway more readable than Ulysses, but I do love the idea of Ulysses just not the actual reading of it. Slight smile

Children
  • Thanks for reminding me about 'The British Museum...' as I haven't tracked down a copy yet.

    Also I agree with you Martin about the science/humanities divide. Regrettably I ditched higher maths and science in upper high school which I later regretted.  When I discovered Primo Levi, particularly The Periodic Table, I felt like his writing was a place where the two could meet.

  • God help me, I have read Finnegans Wake from cover to cover, but it was a huge, largely unrewarding, effort. I think Ulysses is a masterpiece, but it is challenging. I prefer 'A Portrait ...' as a read, it was  perfectly  poised between Joyce as a story-teller and Joyce as a self-knowing avant-garde stylist.

    I enjoyed and was good at Eng. Lit., but didn't take it beyond 'O'-level, because of the conflict between science and the humanities that happens far too early in education in these islands. Thinking about future employment, I took the science route.

    I few years ago I stayed in a Dublin hotel that was the home of Oliver Gogarty, a friend of Joyce and the model of the character Malachy Mulligan in Ulysses.

    In 'The British Museum is Falling Down' each chapter is written as a pastiche of the style of a well known writer. It is fun working out who is being imitated.