I've read the new Harry Potter. It was good. Better I think, than the last couple, which were too dark, too disturbing. I liked the Hallows much better. I've just read a couple of No.1 Ladies Detective Agency books. They're fun. Think I've had my fill of them now though.
I've been trying to remember some of my earliest favourites. I remember a birthday present book of nursery rhymes that I chose. It's a beautifully illustrated book, trashed by my kids and with its ancient glue and stitching giving way now. I remember Enid Blyton books which belonged to my mother, featuring Noddy and Big Ears and naughty gollywogs. There was a collection of Girls Own annuals at my Grandmother's house, and I loved those too. Thick cartridge paper pages, full of tales of hockey-playing boarding-school gals. I read and re-read the Little Women stories, and Katy, in What Katy Did, and What Katy Did at School and What Katy Did Next was my hero. I remember thinking Jonathon Livingston Seagull was the answer to everything. HA! Slyvia Plath's The Bell Jar probably increased my teenage angst tenfold. Maurice Gee's Plumb series is my Kiwi favourite, and The Bone People by Kerri Hume was a real treasure of my university days. It's the poetry I remember mostly from studying English Lit though, Dennis Glover (a Kiwi), Yeats, and yes even Chaucer (which will make AOF laugh). The Chaucer was compulsory, the exams torture, but the stories are so funny! I remember an incredible lecture about Foreskin's Lament, a NZ play about rugby, with the lecturer taking huge strides using the lecture theatre tables like stairs and rubbing pungent liniment (the smell of club rugby)into his hands and ours and raving about this, the great New Zealand play. Unforgettable. I dropped out of economics about then! And Shakespeare, of course. I have a huge beautifully illustrated Complete Works that my brother bought for me, many moons ago.
Charles De Secondat (1689 - 1755)
Hear hear!!
3 comments:
I avoided doing an english major, for many reasons - a fear of ending up hating literature for one and a way to avoid the compulsory middle english for another. And what happens whe we do nice modern drama - a bloody play in middle english! I can still speak :)
Can I borrow HP when I'm over?
A friend informed me just this morning that The No. 1 Ladies Det. Agcy. is being filmed currently in Botswana and the singer/poet Jill Scott is playing the lead role (I can so see that) and that when the sign was hung for the filming that people actually showed up thinking it was a real business.
I so agree. And feel sorry for people who don't enjoy reading. Guess that's why it's important to help out in my son's classroom, to spread the word about books!!
I enjoyed the No 1 LDA too but I think you have to space them out, not read one after the other as I did, because they do get a bit much. I also tried his Sunday Philosopher series but didn't like them. As for HP7, I have nearly finished re-reading it because it got devoured at breakneck speed initially.
Thankyou for visiting my blog. I have lurked here occasionally!! Good luck with the rubbish bins. I would hate to have to start doing them again...
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