Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
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The Shrine Shelf - Which books are on yours?
This is a great idea (thank you!) and deserves serious consideration, because with the limitation of 12 ... it will be hard! So, I'll ponder over my 12 books and come back as soon as I have decided.
If I choose to have no religious item, am I allowed an additional book? :)
And, just to be contrary, what if you're not interested in Shakespeare but would prefer the complete works of say Steven Spielberg (if such a thing existed)? I'm just saying ... :0)Still, a really cool idea. Are omnibuses acceptable?
Here is my list. I'm going by the number of times I've re-read the piece. 1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (plus the others of hers).
2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
3. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
4. Mythology by Edith Hamilton
5. Norse Mythology - will have to check the title back home. It's one I read a lot.
6. Household Tales by Brothers Grimm collected by Jacob and Ludwig Grimm
7. Dragonquest by Anne McCaffery
8. Ringworld by Larry Niven
9. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
10. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
11. Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase
12. Muscling Through by J.L. Merrow
They are not really ranked, but Pride and Prejudice is #1. I've re-read that book more times than I can remember.
Alright, I'm trying, it's a hard task, though ;D I'd also like to substitute the bible for The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. 1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Momo by Michael Ende
3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
4. 1984 by George Orwell
5. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
7. Draußen vor der Tür by Wolfgang Borchert; the English version would be The Man Outside
8. Was für ein schöner Sonntag! by Jorge Semprún - English version: What A Beautiful Sunday!
9. Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie by Thomas Mann; English version: Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family
10. The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren
11. Sun Storm by Åsa Larsson
12. Would be a poem's book, if I'd read any. I'm likely to read one poem or two at a time, but a whole book? That's never happened till now ;) If I could vote for one poem, it would be Prometheus by Goethe, though.
And there are just way too many books not on that list that I absolutely loved. :( Tomorrow this list could look quite different... and since not even the list content is absolutely fixed, to achieve any sort of ranking is completely impossible.
Katharina wrote: "Alright, I'm trying, it's a hard task, though ;D I'd also like to substitute the bible for The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. ...
8. Was für ein schöner Sonntag! by Jorge Semprún - English version: What A Beautiful Sunday!"
LOL about the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Although considering that the whole story was born out of Christian religious fundamentalism, maybe it is not so funny...
And guess what I'm rereading now? Le Grand Voyage (EN: The Long Voyage) in preparation of reading Quel beau dimanche ! / What A Beautiful Sunday!. Because someone mentioned it on the German forum and I found out I hadn't read it, even though I loved ''Le Grand Voyage''.
And now for something completely different:
Would it be possible to put an asterisk for the m/m books? It looks like the majority here is not m/m.
ETA: You can read big chunks of this book on GoogleBooks! Sorry, folks, it's only in German!
Antonella wrote: "Katharina wrote: "Alright, I'm trying, it's a hard task, though ;D I'd also like to substitute the bible for The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. ...
8. Was für ein schöner Sonntag! by Jorg..."
I really loved What a Beautiful Sunday! It's far less depressing that the premise might suggest and very very well written. Very thought-provoking and moving, too! I haven't read The Long Voyage yet, but I might have to look into that!
The asterisks sound like a great idea, but actually none of my books on that list so far are M/M. I usually need to let things simmer for a while after reading - if a book stays with me and I think it over again and again, voilà it's a good candidate for that list. And since I haven't been reading M/M for that long, so far none have made it ;)
Although, to be fair, "Muscling Through" by J.L. Merrow and Josh's book "The Darkling Thrush" came close...
ETA: Danke für den Tipp!! :)
ETA 2: I love the idea of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - I couldn't think of a more perfect reply to the whole teaching-intelligent-design-in-schools-instead-of-evolution idea. I'm a biologist by training and that whole discussion really angers me to my very core - as I'm sure it does many other scientists. I have high admiration for anybody who can turn that kind of negative feeling into something as witty, funny, sarcastic, and smart as the FSM story :)
Katharina wrote: "The asterisks sound like a great idea, but actually none of my books on that list so far are M/M."My request was for other people.
The Long Voyage is beautifully written, multi-layered and also very modern, jumping forward but keeping a fil rouge (red ?), so that the reader doesn't get confused. And of course very moving.
The more I think about it, the less I can choose. So, here's my shrine shelf for today. 1 – The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry
2 – Skybound by Aleksandr Voinov *
3 – Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander *
4 – Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War by Jeff Mann *
5 – Flowers of Evil/Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
6 – Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
7 – First Against the Wall by Manna Francis *
8 – Paroles by Jacques Prévert
9 – Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran
10 – Filth by M. King *
11 – Life After Death by Andrea Speed *
12 – Death of a Pirate King by Josh Lanyon *
They're in random order. Some are immovable, some may change according to my mood.
If I can add a "spiritual" book, Contes à guérir, contes à grandirby Jacques Salomé
These are my choices: "A Christmas Carol," Charles Dickens
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Edgar Allan Poe
"The Hound of the Baskervilles," Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Thin Man," Dashiell Hammett"
"Great Expectations" Charles Dickens
"Emma," Jane Austin
"Adrien English Mysteries," Josh Lanyon
"Call of the Wild," Jack London
"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," Mark Twain
"Ulysses," James Joyce
"Shattered Glass," Dani Alexander
"Selected Poems of E. E. Cummings"
I love these books.
A hard task!I'd replace Shakespeare with a copy of the OED and the religious text with the Women's Encyclopedia of Myths & Secrets.
1. Dune - Frank Herbert
2. Fire And Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
3. There's a Wocket in My Pocket! - Dr. Seuss
4. The Dark Is Rising - Susan Cooper
5. The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury
6. Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks - Ben Aaronovich
7. Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett
8. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
9. The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks - Josh Lanyon
10. Smoke and Ashes - Tanya Huff
11. Angels of the Deep - Kirby Crow
12. The Living Shadow - Maxwell Grant (Walter B. Gibson)
Oh God. This is so not easy.In no particular order:
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
The Charioteer - Mary Renault
The Waste Land - T S Elliot*
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
The Strange Death of Liberal England - George Dangerfield
Southern Ladies & Gentlemen - Florence King
The Lord of the Rings - J R R Tolkien
The Collected Dialogues of Plato - Jewett
Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
Of Human Bondage - Somerset Maugham
What Is Called Thinking? - Martin Heidegger
*Now I would cheat and try to smuggle my copy of Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950 because I think Four Quartets might be necessary for my continued survival as well as The Waste Land. The again, I'd try to cheat and bring along my iPad - pay no attention to the contents of my iBooks.
I think in place of the Bible, I might opt for
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, though the Shakespeare would be most welcome.
Oh! If we're being purists about the game, we ought to get one CD, right? :) Joni Mitchell's Hejira.
I was thinking: given where we're having this discussion, we should be allowed to select one of Josh's books as granted right along with the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. This point would surely be worth some considerable wheedling and perhaps a touch of bribery.Now, in truth, even that's a tough one. If I've got to stick to stand-alones, Come Unto These Yellow Sands, but only by a whisker ahead of The Dark Tide. The trouble is, with Josh I get greedy. Given one, I want the whole bloody oeuvre.
I agree John. I would add Come Unto These Yellow Sands as well. :-)
Lori wrote: "And, just to be contrary, what if you're not interested in Shakespeare but would prefer the complete works of say Steven Spielberg (if such a thing existed)? I'm just saying ..."Did you really want the hitherto unpublishd works of a minor late twentieth century film-maker over the the writing of one of the greatest poets in the English language whose poetry and plays we are still reading some four hundred years after. I'm going to have to save you from yourself here and insist on Shakespeare. Believe me you will thank me when you're stuck on the island. You'll be able to use the Shakespeare as a doorstop or pillow once you've built your shack even if you don't want to read him.
Now if you'd told me you rated Dante, Goethe, Pushkin, Homer over the works of Shakespeare it might have been different.
Lori wrote: "A hard task!I'd replace Shakespeare with a copy of the OED and the religious text with the Women's Encyclopedia of Myths & Secrets.
1. Dune - Frank Herbert
2. Fire And Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jone..."
I think I can allow the OED.
John wrote: "I was thinking: given where we're having this discussion, we should be allowed to select one of Josh's books as granted right along with the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare..."Rule 8 - One book by Josh Lanyon
Rule 9 - One piece of music
John you are not allowed anyone's whole bloody oeuvre apart from Shakespeare. Mine would have to be 'In from the Cold; the I-spy stories' - as I have a soft spot for Mark or 'Death of a Pirate King'. I'm currently trying not to read The Dark Tide because I don't want to get to the end of Adrien and Jake although it appears to have got itself downloaded onto my kindle.
Ok, here we go.Il nome della rosa - Umberto Eco
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems - T.S. Eliot
The Stand - Stephen King
The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde
The Snapper - Roddy Doyle
* Death of a Pirate King - Josh Lanyon
* Mongrel - K.Z. Snow
* Wicked Gentlemen - Ginn Hale
* Skybound - Aleksandr Voinov
* First Against the Wall - Manna Francis
* Muscling Through - J.L. Merrow
My spiritual book is Diaries of Franz Kafka.
As mentioned I'd add The Darkling Thrush by Josh (I just love his fantasy stories!) and for the piece of music... wow, that is pretty hard, too... I'd choose "Across the Dark" by Insomnium.
Emanuela ~plastic duck~ wrote: "Ok, here we go.Il nome della rosa - Umberto Eco
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems - T.S. Eliot
The Stand - Stephen King
The Importance of Being..."
This actually could be largely an alternative list of mine. I loved six of them, and three more are on my urgent want-to-read list. :D
I'd steal:From Susinok, The Lord of the Rings
From Katharina, 1984
From Ilhem, Le fleurs du mal
From Carlita, The Hound of the Baskervilles
From Lori, The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks
From John, Wuthering Heights, but Whitman is tempting
I'm waiting for someone to put Keats on their shelves, so that I can steal it. Also, I'd tear the pages of Joyce's The Dead and hide them somewhere. It's so so difficult to choose...
ETA: and Come Unto These Yellow Sands...
Oooo TS Eliot. Loved J. Alfred Prufrock. I'll steal that one for poetry, though I'm partial to Shakespeare's sonnets. I suppose those covered however. For my Josh book, Come Unto These Yellow Sands.I just have not been reading m/m long enough to have established re-read patterns.
Emanuela ~plastic duck~ wrote: "Ok, here we go."The more I read about your choices the more I think I cannot come to a conclusion for myself.
Thank you for putting an an asterisk for the m/m books, dear Manu!
John wrote: "Oh God. This is so not easy.Now I would cheat and try to smuggle my copy of Eliot's Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950 because I think Four Quartets might be necessary for my continued survival as well as The Waste Land. The again, I'd try to cheat and bring along my iPad - pay no attention to the contents of my iBooks."
Nice try but don't forget you've been ship wrecked John. As you left the sinking ship you took with you a beautiful carved wooden box, labelled Pirate’s Revenge which is waterproof and floated alongside you to the island but it only has room for precisely fifteen volumes, your twelve choices plus Josh Lanyon plus spiritual book, plus Shakespeare or whatever it was you persuaded the captain was the equivalent to Shakespeare.
So that complete volume of Eliot that you thrust into your pocket at the last moment has been immersed in the briny ocean. Its pages are all stuck together. You could use it as a doorstop I guess. And I hate to break it to you kiddo but your iPad is also full of salt water.
Antonella wrote: The more I read about your choices the more I think I cannot come to a conclusion for myself..."The ship is sinking Antonella - don't take too long.
Can we establish that we'll all land on the same island? Would make the stealing from other shelves easier... ;)
Calathea wrote: "Can we establish that we'll all land on the same island? Would make the stealing from other shelves easier... ;)"I'm counting on it! Don't bring doubles, guys! :)
Calathea wrote: "Can we establish that we'll all land on the same island? Would make the stealing from other shelves easier... ;)"Absolutely!
Emanuela ~plastic duck~ wrote: "Don't bring doubles, guys! :) "You read my mind! ;)
Caroline wrote: "Nice try but don't forget you've been ship wrecked John...."Well, I did warn that I'd attempt to wheedle. This is the intellectual equivalent of a heroin addiction, you understand.
I had no idea how mean Kirsty Young must have to be to do her job...
Caroline wrote: "Did you really want the hitherto unpublishd works of a minor late twentieth century film-maker over the the writing of one of the greatest poets in the English language whose poetry and plays we are still reading some four hundred years after. I'm going to have to save you from yourself here and insist on Shakespeare. Believe me you will thank me when you're stuck on the island. You'll be able to use the Shakespeare as a doorstop or pillow once you've built your shack even if you don't want to read him."I love to watch Shakespeare (Kenneth Branaugh's stuff especially), but reading him is an entirely different matter. He, along with those others you name, would be last ditch, shear desperation, there's nothing else to read authors.
{Edited to add} On second thought, I would replace Homer with the Poetic Edda - can't beat the Norse for high adventure and gods you can actually relate to!
Lori wrote: "I love to watch Shakespeare (Kenneth Branaugh's stuff especially), but reading him is an entirely different matter. He, along with those others you name, would be last ditch, shear desperation, there's nothing else to read authors."Though, think of the amateur theatrics we could get up to, all of us marooned on a desert island, each with our own copy of the plays.
Just shortly after the Mesozoic Era, when I was in Grade 9, my English teacher had us read a couple of the plays out loud. It really helped me understand how to read a play (which is quite different from reading a novel or poetry). The bugger made us memorize big chunks, too, which infuriated me at the time. But I guess there are worse things to have stuck in your head than Mark Antony's speech in Act 3 of Julius Caesar. And it is still stuck up there.
John wrote: "Lori wrote: "I love to watch Shakespeare (Kenneth Branaugh's stuff especially), but reading him is an entirely different matter. He, along with those others you name, would be last ditch, shear des..."Our English teacher had us read Earnest, maybe that's why I love it so much.
Mmmm, if we're doing Shakespeare, let me do Mrs Macbeth...
So far, I'd steal: From Susinok: "Muscling Through"
From Ilhem: "Skybound"
From Carlita: "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
From Lori: "Reaper Man" (so hilarious!!)
From John: "Wuthering Heights" - I always wanted to read this, but somehow never did until now...
From Emanuela: "The Importance of Being Earnest"
John wrote: I had no idea how mean Kirsty Young must have to be to do her job...."Yup that's right. It's an archipelago of islands folks so each person gets their own separate little island.
However if someone wants to risk their beautifully ornate chest by floating it across to a nearby castaway with the offering of a book well that’s up to you. I can’t quite bring myself to stop you eyeing up each other’s choices BUT there will be no communal library.
Sheesh they’ve only been there for a day….
Caroline: Sheeesh they've only been there for a day...Yup , it's always about more books. LOL
Caroline wrote: "John wrote: I had no idea how mean Kirsty Young must have to be to do her job...."Yup that's right. It's an archipelago of islands folks so each person gets their own separate little island.
Ho..."
Aww... ;D
Caroline wrote: "John wrote: I had no idea how mean Kirsty Young must have to be to do her job...."Yup that's right. It's an archipelago of islands folks so each person gets their own separate little island.
Ho..."
Gasp!
How far from eachother are the islands? We probably can find something, right?
We have to find a way to communicate...
There are problably palm trees or something like that. We'll just have to build rafts :D
Katharina wrote: "There are problably palm trees or something like that. We'll just have to build rafts :D"After I got a nice tan, because before I need shadow now and then :D
I think a book on basket weaving would be a practical thing to have at this point ... :O)
Oh yes, definitely a good idea!! I'd also throw in a survival guide, maybe?... and we just have to deforest sustainably - maybe everyone can contribute one trunk and we're perfectly set for a raft, I imagine :)
Do we have paper on these islands? We can write our own. Seems we have plenty of classics available as source inspiration and research.
Susinok wrote: "Do we have paper on these islands? We can write our own. Seems we have plenty of classics available as source inspiration and research."Oddly enough, my thought was that everyone could writer their own fanfic just on the out of copyright material alone. LOL.
I'd actually logged in earlier to post my choices and then I found you lot planning on pilfering each other's books and setting up an Am Dram society and now there seems to be a break-out group intent on setting off by raft. Anyway before I get distracted here's my choices1. The Charioteer by Mary Renault
2. Four Quartets by T.S.Eliot
3. Poems by Edward Thomas
4. Chaotic Angels: Poems in English by Gwyneth Lewis
5. The Stalin Organ by Gert Ledig
6. Medicus and the disappearing dancing girls by Ruth Downie - a meticulously researched slice of Roman Britain and I can hear Ruth speaking when I read her stuff.
7. Onward to Malta by Tom Neil - Tom Neil was based on Malta during 1941 at the same time my grandfather, my taid will have been there with his ship. They won't have met - Neil was an RAF pilot and had fought in the Battle of Britain and Taid was a merchant seaman but I can get an idea of what life was like on the island from Tom Neil's account. Tom is still going strong at age 92 and has a new book out, Silver Spitfire. I'm hoping to meet him in the near future.
8. The Woman Destroyed by Simone De Beauvoir – the first ‘grown-up’ book I read.
9. Robert Scott’s Diary – this is one of my ‘lost’ books. My mother had a hardback copy of his diary and letters which I used to read a teenager trying to imagine I was in that tent having failed to reach the South Pole first. if only I’d realised how much I might want to re-read it when we cleared my parents house
10. Whistle by Martin Figura - not only is this a fantastic collection of poems but Martin has also turned it into a stage show.
11. The Coward's Tale. Vanessa Gebbie by Vanessa Gebbie - dark, Welsh and a book I come back to frequently.
12. Stale bread and Miracles by Jan Fortune. Jan was one of the first women that the Anglican church allowed to become priests and these poems tell that story.
I’m going to cheat (sort of) with my piece of music by having Alice Oswald reading Memorial.
Dante’s Divine Comedy instead of Shakespeare – a bilingual edition so I can try to learn some Italian.
Buddhists don’t have a bible type of book or as my teacher carefully explained at lunchtime ‘Buddhism is a practice and not a doctrine’. So to help with my practice I’ll bring The Miracle of Mindfulness.
My Lanyon is still In From the Cold: The I Spy Stories – but I have so much of Josh’s back catalogue to catch up with that this may change.
Robert Scott's expedition part 1 is available on Manybooks.net in digital format.http://manybooks.net/titles/scottrf11...
Now for the geography lesson. The Lanyon archipelago is a long way from civilisation. If viewed from above the islands appear to be clustered in a tear-drop shape with each island being within hailing distance of its neighbours. There are plentiful sources of fruit and fresh spring water and most of the islands contain paper bark trees. The seas surrounding the islands are frequented by sharks, predominately Tiger and Bull sharks with reported sightings of box jellyfish, particularly the most toxic subspecies Chironex fleckeri var Paulus Kaneus.
Everyone with me so far? We'll all be able to see and call to each other and listen to each other's choice of music.
I wonder if we talked to Josh nicely if he'd arrange for a couple of his narrators to be ship-wrecked with us? Once they've finished with the auditions Don't forget to vote.
Q&A with Josh Lanyon
Books mentioned in this topic
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Authors mentioned in this topic
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Michael Ende (other topics)
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Erich Kästner (other topics)
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The rules for the Shrine shelf are
1. Maximum of 12 books - remember it's a shelf with a finite amount of space.
2. One book per author - yes I know that's tough and I'm not even going to cheat by going for lots of Collected poems of…
3. The shelf automatically comes with the Complete Works of Shakespeare and the Bible which do not count towards your choice of 12 and without being in breach of rule 2. Yes the shelf does have aspirations about being turned into a Radio programme in which famous folk discuss their favourite titles - Desert Island Books.
Edited later to allow for an alternative spiritual book in place of the bible.
4. Childhood favourites are fine.
5. Please try not to put books you've written yourself onto the shelf. C'mon anything you've written which is good enough will still be inside your head as you sit on your desert island so you should not need an actual copy of the book.
6. Your shelf should include at least one book of poems (as well as the Shakespeare) or in my case I'm trying to keep my poetry choices down to half of the shelf. Sheesh maybe we should scrap this rule before we start.
7. Have fun - it's meant to be light-hearted and not a serious exercise.
See below for rules 8, 9 and 13
Rule 8 - At least one book by Josh Lanyon
Rule 9 - One piece of music