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Currently reading anything by a British writer?
Werner wrote: "Back when I was a grade-school kid, I read the Reader's Digest condensed version of The Nun's Story (written by Kathryn Hulme) --I don't read condensed versions any more, because I t..."If you're talking about In This House of Brede, we have been discussing it. I love it.
I've also read The Kitchen Madonna and The Toy House (not sure that's the name), and An Episode of Sparrows.
Yes, Alicia, I read the comments between you and Rosemarie about In This House of Brede. That was what prompted me to think that you might also enjoy The Dark Horse.
Werner wrote: "Yes, Alicia, I read the comments between you and Rosemarie about In This House of Brede. That was what prompted me to think that you might also enjoy The Dark Horse."And it goes on the list. Thanks. She's someone whose books I always looked for. I'm so eclectic that I never finish one writer; that leaves more to be discovered.
I always like discovering new writers too. I recently discovered Elizabeth Goudge.
Hello Rosemarie,an excellent book by Elizabeth Goudge is The White Witch,it really brings to life the England of,I forget now,but just before or after the Civil War. It's very atmospheric.
Jane wrote: "Hello Rosemarie,an excellent book by Elizabeth Goudge is The White Witch,it really brings to life the England of,I forget now,but just before or after the Civil War. It's very atmospheric."Thank you for the recommendation. I loved her children's book The Little White Horse.
Just finished Jacqueline Winspears' last Maisie Dobb's story. Whenever I read her books it is as if Ms Winspear opens a curtain to the time and place she is writing about. Her characters, for me, are so real I think they could be recognized on the street if seen.Perhaps some of my prejudice is showing, but it seems that most of the British writers (that I have read) have a tone and ability to draw a reader in and make them part of the story and again for me, without drowning the story in too much description.
Nonnye wrote: "most of the British writers (that I have read) have a tone and ability to draw a reader in and make them part of the story and again for me, without drowning the story in too much description. "I don't even know what a moor is, but I know how one feels, courtesy of Conan Doyle (The Hound of the Baskervilles) and Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights).
Does anyone read Henry Williamson these days. He wrote nature novels like Tarka the Otter and Salar the Salmon but he also wrote a series of books about really his life but his character was called Philip,A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight is the series name. It starts with The Dark Lantern,this book drew me in,the picture he draws of late Victorian middle class life is so true you could be there. The love of and delight in the natural world is in all the stories. However this author did fall from favour as in the 1930s he had sympathy for Hitler's ideas,I don't know why. It seems to me that some of those ideas have been "rebranded" and are about these days.
I have started reading Love Lies Bleeding by Edmund Crispin. This is the first book that I am reading by this author. So far I am enjoying it, but no one has been murdered-- yet.
Oh, I just love Edmund Crispin. The Moving Toyshop is another one of his that is great.
Alicia wrote: "Nonnye wrote: "most of the British writers (that I have read) have a tone and ability to draw a reader in and make them part of the story and again for me, without drowning the story in too much de..."Yes, about a moor, I have been so addicted to reading all my life, and reading often means books by British writers, that I took my family on a trip to England to experience a moor. (well, and everything else I had read about) We never got to the fen country, though, so I have to rely on Dorothy Sayers, The Nine Taylors for that.
i am rereading "Thrush Green"by Miss Read (penname for Dora Saint). Miss Read books are very slow pace and unlike anything else I read. These books are almost still life but they are rich in nostalgia for village life of the past. Mrs. Saint was from Witney, Oxfordshire, and I was enchanted to get to visit there last summer. (I think many would regard these books as boring and I sometimes do,too.)
Brenda, I think I have read all the Miss Read books. I recently reread some of the Thrush Green books too. There is not a lot of action in them but it is like visiting old friends. I just about finished Love Lies Bleeding by Edmund Crispin and am enjoying it immensely.
My wife Barb and I tried reading a novel by Miss Read together (that is, with me reading aloud to her), I think back in the 80s; but we quit after about three chapters because Barb was bored with it, and we found it very disjointed --every chapter introduced and focused on a completely different character, so it was impossible to identify, follow and get interested in a single protagonist. (The book didn't engage me, either.) I don't remember the title of this particular one, but I do remember that the focus character in the third chapter was a schoolteacher.
I thought Miss Read books were for old ladies but got some out on tape from our library to play for my Mum,but I soon got into them myself! They're more complex really than they seem. They're about "nice people". I'd rather hear them read than read from a book. In one book the author gives the perfect exposition of the atheist viewpoint on death from the old doctors point of view,in very sophisticated terms,far from the usual cosiness.
I'm reading The Man in the Blue Fez: the third one of the Birth of an Assassin Series by Rik Stone. I'm completely absorbed in this story - love his writing style and highly recommend his books.Although they could stand alone, I recommend reading the following one first: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Birth-Assass...
Reading When We were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro. The beginning seems to be very interesting. I have just crossed the fifty pages and I am quite happy with the flow right now.
I'm reading "The Children Act" by Ian McEwan (my first by him). In one word: thought-provoking.
I've just started reading Taking Morgan, by David Rose Taking Morgan Tense, twisted opening. Compelling stuff.
I am reading The Third Man by Graham Greene. As I am reading it I keep hearing zither music in my head.
HLP, Smeller and Devourer of Print wrote: " wanting to read The Secret Garden..."If you haven't read it, you should.
Jane wrote: "Does anyone read Henry Williamson these days. He wrote nature novels like Tarka the Otter and Salar the Salmon but he also wrote a series of books about really his life but his character was called..."Not for years. In my late teens I would read any wildlife books I could get from the library. Tarka the Otter was among them. It would be interesting to read more. I don't tend to think about an author's politics unless it is a political book.
Upon recommendation from a friend I recently started onSidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death. It is very enjoyable so far - and contrary to the title, nothing at all like Harry Potter.
Decided to reread The Tale Of Two Cities.
Oksana, I enjoyed the book much more on the second read. Once I know the story, I tend to pay more attention to the dialogue and the writing in general. Enjoy the book.
Exactly, Rosemarie! The first time I rushed through the book, the second time I was studiously recording all the stylistic devices used, the third time I am savouring it!
I am working through a 2016 Reading Challenge and for the month of June we had to pick a new author, so I chose Kate Hamer's The Girl in a Red Coat...so far so good. :)
I am reading "The Return" by Walter de la Mare right now.. if it wasn't for my seminar, I would never have chosen that novel by myself. De la Mare (for reasons I cannot understand) is quite unknown, at least to me and most of the people I've asked..It is my first speculative/weird fiction read and I must say I like it so far :)
I'm excited to start The Comforters by Muriel Spark tonight. I haven't read anything by her before, although she has been on my TBR list for a while, so I thought her first novel would be a good place to start.
I really like DeLaMare's poetry but I didn't realize he also wrote fiction.
One of the numerous series I've started and intend to read more of is C. S. Forester's Hornblower Saga --I want to finish The Young Hornblower Omnibus, and have only ever read the first of the three novels there. So I've just started on the second one, Lieutenant Hornblower.
I'm reading Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith, also known as J.K. Rowling. This is the third book in the Cormoran Strike series and I am desperate to finish it!
Currently reading anything by a British writer?
Yup - and is all dark and dystopian:
In Vitro Lottery
Hello,this is from Jane. The creepiest poem I know is The Watchers by Walter de la Mare. Thank goodness that door is NOT opened! As someone who finds just ordinary life very scary and confusing I don't watch horror films/read books. If I want to scare myself out of my wit's I watch the TV news!
Yes, Jane, the daily TV news or newspaper is much scarier than anything ever dreamed up by the authors of supernatural fiction!
Jane wrote: "If I want to scare myself out of my wit's I watch the TV news!"I am totally with you there. I really find horror hard to cope with and never understand what others get from watching horror films or reading horror books. One friend of mine said that it about the adrenaline rush - the sense that you are feeling terrified but know you are really safe. Maybe I missed out on something, but for me being terrified is - well, terrifying and has no notion of 'fun' or 'pleasure' in it.
Which horror writer was it who said something along the lines of: True horror is not the feeling you get reading a scary book, it is the moment you realise you have lost your wallet - or something like that?
Edited to add: I could be wrong but I believe it was another British author James Herbert ....
Personally, I don't use the term "horror" very much as a genre designation, although I read, and have read, a lot of supernaturally-themed fiction --which may or may not be horrific. To me, it makes more sense to define genres by their objective content, rather than by the subjective emotional effect they may or may not create. It's hard go be genuinely scared by something you know isn't real, though there are a handful of supernatural works that (for me) do produce a real state of tense suspense. But trying to cultivate that state isn't the main (or even a very important) reason why I'm drawn to the fiction of the supernatural.For me, I think probably the central attraction of the genre is the way it allows us to directly explore, even in symbolic or metaphorical ways, the idea of a supernatural or spiritual dimension to reality, impinging on the physical in ways that expose the limitations of the latter, and to explore the idea of a cosmic struggle of good vs. evil in ways that personify both in emotionally evocative ways. But other readers who like the genre have a variety of reasons for their taste. This thread (from another group) gives some insight into the variety of what others "get" from it: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... .
For my birthday I bought myself all of Jane Austen's novels- I'm absolutely delighted. Which one should I read first?
What a wonderful present! Many readers like Pride and Prejudice, but I prefer Sense and Sensibility because I like the contrast between the two sisters. Northanger Abbey is a lot of fun because the heroine is so sweet. I would start with any of the above three because they are all equally enjoyable to read.
A, the first Austen novel I read was Pride and Prejudice, but that's probably because it was the main one I'd heard of at that time. If you prefer to read them in the order in which they were actually written, I think Northanger Abbey was the first (though one of the last to be published), but I could be wrong about that.
Just finished to read "La recluse de Wildfell Hall" ("The Tenant of Wildfell Hall") because I wanted to discover more Anne Brontë. I knew her just by reading "Agnes Grey".
I really enjoyed The Tenant of Wildfell Hall but have not read Agnes Grey yet. Which did you like better?
Werner wrote: "But other readers who like the genre have a variety of reasons for their taste. This thread (from another group) gives some insight into the variety of what others "get" from it: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... .Thanks for linking this, Werner, it makes some interesting points and reminds me that horror is in the eye of the beholder. There are many books that others might categorise as horror which I would not. For example, most supernatural horror I find not at all horrific as I have no belief in that direction. But psychological and gore-based horror will affect me.
I think horror is the most chilling when it touches into an area you can believe in - the nearer to your own sense of reality it becomes, the more horrific it is. IMO, of course.
And sorry if this is a post too far off topic for this thread.
Yes, E. M., I too find naturalistic "horror" writing, based on human cruelty and violence and deliberately written to nauseate and repel, to be much more unpleasantly horrific and gut-wrenching than any supernatural "horror," for that same reason. (I basically avoid graphic and ultra-gory violence used gratuitously for shock value, regardless of genre.) I hear enough about that stuff in the real world; I don't want to seek it out in my fiction reading!No need to apologize; we're both totally off topic, but if the other moderators don't catch us, we'll be safe. :-) Seriously, I'm not too concerned when discussions naturally lead to a short excursion down an interesting rabbit trail; that's how conversation works online, just like it does when you're talking face to face. I only get concerned if people get into a long, knock-down, drag-out fight over some extraneous topic, that hijacks the thread --and no, that's never happened in this group!
Werner wrote: " we're both totally off topic, but if the other moderators don't catch us, we'll be safe. :-)"It's alright, I don't think they noticed yet ;)
And yes, much too much real horror out there to want to add it into one's escapism time.
Rosemarie wrote: "I really enjoyed The Tenant of Wildfell Hall but have not read Agnes Grey yet. Which did you like better?"
Just wondering if amongst reading the works of the Brontes and Austen, you have come across Maria Edgeworth? She was a British author much lauded in her own time, but now seems to have been almost completely forgotten. I recall reading somewhere that her Castle Rackrent is regarded as the first British historical novel. That said, it is a book still sitting on my 'must read one day' shelf - a shelf that I (shamefully) add to more often than read from - along with a large number of other classic and seminal works.
Edited to add: I just did a quick bit of research to back up my memory and have found that Belinda is seen as being much more comparable with Austen.
E.M. My to read list also keeps growing faster than I can read the books I have, but sometimes I really don't know what to read next, usually after I have finished a truly amazing book, and the list helps a lot.I have heard of Maria Edgeworth but have not read any of her books.
Fans of British Writers
Books mentioned in this topic
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The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral (other topics)
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The Feast (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Charles Lamb (other topics)Charles Dickens (other topics)
Robert Westall (other topics)
Margaret Kennedy (other topics)
William Wordsworth (other topics)
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Rosemarie, I have The Black Narcissus on my to-read shelf.