*gloat*

[truepenny]

So we went to the used bookstore this afternoon, and aside from strong-arming heres_luck into buying Margaret Mahy's The Changeover, I bought a beautiful stack of books. My only problem at the moment is that I can only realistically read one of them at once.


A. A. Milne, When We Were Very Young, Now We Are Six (because I periodically get the start of various verses stuck in my head, and need to have the whole thing where I can get at it; this is particularly true of "The King of Peru / Who was Emperor, too").

Jane Langton, The Diamond in the Window (loved this book as a kid; want to read it again now that I actually know who the Transcendentalists are).

Madeleine L'Engle, The Young Unicorns (the only book of hers that isn't A Wrinkle in Time or A Swiftly Tilting Planet that I remember loving so much I read it more than twice).

Rachel Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, both volumes.

Teri Hein, Atomic Farmgirl.

S. J. Rozan, Concourse.

Phyllis Ann Karr, The Idylls of the Queen.

Elizabeth E. Wein, The Winter Prince.

Sheri S. Tepper, The Gate to Women's Country (because of the panel on feminist utopias at last year's WisCon--which turned out to be sort of a utopia/dystopia discussion, as most often happens).

Cherry Wilder, A Princess of the Chameln, Yorath the Wolf.

Rosemary Kirstein, The Steerswoman, The Outskirter's Secret.


That's a lot of books crossed off my list at once. I'm very pleased.

And Friday the Thirteenth comes on a Tuesday this month.

Comments

[larryhammer]

Ah, another Pogo-raised coon-chile.

---L.

[srallen.livejournal.com]

The Gate to Women's Country

Oh please post a review of this when you get around to this. I've been banging my head in a debate with a friend about this book and I'd love to hear someone else's take.

Humble request...
*cringefawngrovel* :)

Snap!!

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

A. A. Milne, When We Were Very Young, Now We Are Six (because I periodically get the start of various verses stuck in my head,

You know, I was just had James, James, Morrison, Morrison going around my head, and was realising that actually I knew most of it, if not all of it, and maybe ought to see if I could recite the lot...

Fun coincidence, I thought. Must say though, Gateway to Women's Country would have to rank as one of my most-disliked books ever - in the 'want to wash my hands after reading it' department. Particular varieties of feminist topias both annoy me and make my blood run cold....

Catherine, who friended you a while back, and really should have said something then.

gee willy-wobbles

[rutemple.livejournal.com]

and here's another (who learned to read from my father's collection of Mister Kelly's collected works)

Ooo - a few new ones to add to my list!
Thank you for the scoop.

[inkylj.livejournal.com]

Not nearly as good as Grass. Decent premise executed competently but not interestingly; heavy dose of authorial wish-fulfillment. (This is not a review and not by truepenny)

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Read the Wein first!

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Rozan is wonderful. And CONCOURSE Is a very good book, dark and complex, where nothing is black and white people do all sorts of "bad" things for good reasons.

It's early enough that you can read it out of order, although I think the relationship between Lydia Chin and Bill Smith grows nicely as the series progresses. In the earlier titles, though, Lydia gets "wimpier" Chinese-cultural cases, though, so the Bill Smith books are usually grittier problems for them to grapple with, morally.

She wins most of her awards for the Bill Smith titles: she won the Shamus for Concourse (the only other woman, aside from Sue Grafton, to win the award) and recently the Edgar for WINTER AND NIGHT.

FWIW, in Spain it's Tuesday the thirteenth instead of Friday the 13th that's traditionally a "black"/bad luck day.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Odds are good I would have anyway, but yes. I will. I'm generally not very fond of Tepper, so it's unlikely to be a glowing review.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm reading The Young Unicorns first, for nostalgia, but The Winter Prince can be second on the list.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I read China Trade last week. Had some first-novel problems, but was basically fine.

I've been told she gets better as she goes along, so I'm still reserving judgment.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I remember liking The Young Unicorns, but the ones I really liked were The Arm of the Starfish, Dragons in the Water, and A Ring of Endless Light. Clearly I like oceans. Also dolphins.

But I hated A Swiftly Tilting Planet, so our tastes may not overlap on L'Engle enough for useful recommendation.

[janni.livejournal.com]

Arm of the Starfish and Swiftly Tilting Planet were both deeply influential books on me when growing up.

I can see the problems with the latter now (including a creepy focus on genetics as a determining force), but that doesn't take away the fondness this late-cold-war child had for a book focused on the conviction that awful happenings can be averted, and things aren't so hopeless as they seem.

[heresluck]

Ring of Endless Light was one of my favorites, too. Dolphins! Plus, that's the book that introduced me to Lewis Thomas's work, which I love.

[srallen.livejournal.com]

Oh I'm a former fan myself and the last time I re-read the book, which used to be a favorite, there were areas and details that absolutely galled me. Unfortunately I went back to friends of mine who remain die-hard fans and the debate was on... for about an hour before I realized I really had better things to do.

Grazie :)

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I'm jealous of the Pollacks. Rachel Pollack rocks.

THE YOUNG UNICORNS is one of my faves of L'Engle, enough so that I made K. drag me out to St. John the Divine one time so I could boggle at it (even though by the time I went, the neighborhood was much, much different than it is in the book).

I also love A RING OF ENDLESS LIGHT because, well, Adam. Yummy, yummy Adam.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

It's actually my favourite Tepper, despite everything that's wrong with it.

It contains a great play.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

I knew I wasn't the only person checking the Rozan books out of my local library, but it's good to run into other readers. I lucked into finding Reflecting the Sky at the airport over the holidays, and that leaves only one book left that I haven't read. I enjoyed RTS partly because Lydia & Bill go to Asia, and Lydia gets to be one of the majority population for a change. Nothing mind-expanding necessarily, but still a change and one obvious road that Rozan hadn't explored yet.

[pbprincess.livejournal.com]

(I've added you to my friend's list because we share a background in early modern and, at least partially, a taste in comfort reading, but this is the first time I've commented in your journal, I think.)

The L'Engles are great finds, because I can so rarely find anything except for Wrinkle in Time or maybe Swiftly Tilting Planet in bookstores up here. The stories with Vicky/Adam particularly appealed to me, especially A Pure and Endless Light, but I found L'Engle difficult to read as a child and came to it as a teen/adult.

I have read most of Tepper's work and enjoy its storytelling and its ecological and feminist bents, but find her work often homophobic and sometimes broadly anti-male. The Gate to Women's Country particularly struck me this way, but seemed deliberate in doing so.

I haven't heard of a lot of the other authors you mention here though. If it's not too much to ask, which should -definitely- be on my own to find list?

[janni.livejournal.com]

I liked Adam, but it was Joshua who stole my heart at 15. I always did seem to have a thing for characters who wound up as tragic figures.

In general I seem to have preferred the O'Keefe/Murray books to the Austin books. Vicky was just never as interesting to me as Meg, or even Polly.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

MMM, Joshua. And, can I say, SOB?

[janni.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was devastated by that.

The book influenced my tragic sensibilities for years to follow.

(And it took me years to really understand why Kali still merited Adam's help, or Calvin's, after that. But ultimately that influenced my sensibilities, too.)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Considering that these are almost all authors I've never read before, I don't know yet. But you don't need to worry that I'll be quiet about my opinions. :)

[pbprincess.livejournal.com]

thanks for that...often the best reads are things you hear about through word of mouth.