*gloat* pt 2

[truepenny]

So heres_luck and I went to the other branch of the used bookstore this afternoon. We aren't necessarily the best people for each other to go bookshopping with, but we do have fun.


E. L. Konigsburg, Silent to the Bone (I picked this up in Barnes & Noble when it first came out, read the first few pages, was instantly fascinated, but did not buy it because I was in a particularly stern renouncing-worldly-pleasures phase. But lo these three years later ...).

Madeleine L'Engle, And Both Were Young. The 1983 version.

Laura Kinsale, The Dream Hunter, Flowers from the Storm.

John Dickson Carr, Till Death Do Us Part, It Walks by Night, The Lost Gallows.

Patrice Kindl, Owl in Love (desayunoencama! I found it!)

Peter Dickinson, The Dancing Bear.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Headless Cupid, The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case.

G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Margaret Mahy, The Tricksters, 24 Hours.

And, my favorite find from this trip, a pirated Taiwanese edition of The Wind in the Willows. It just amused me too much to be left on the shelf.

Comments

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

*suppressing deep envy at the Dancing Bear acquisition*

Yay, those are very good Kinsales! Particularly Flowers from the Storm.

You'll like Owl in Love: it is very DWJ-ish.

[gwynnega]

Oh, wow, I haven't thought of E.L. Konigsburg since I was a kid. From the Mixed-up Files and Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth were two of my favorite books...

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Silent to the Bone wasn't /quite/ as good as it could have been, but it was really, really good nonetheless.

Also, yay Chesterton.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Yay! I hope you like OWL IN LOVE. I know you've promised Mely to read the Elizabeth Wein after you're through with the L'Engle, but hopefully you'll read OWL IN LOVE soon thereafter.

Has anyone yet read the sequel to THE WINTER PRINCE, titled A COALITION OF LIONS? Something to look for when back in the U.S. next month...

[larryhammer]

Duplicate applause for Owl in Love. And I still think of Flowers as Kinsale's best novel.

---L.

[pameladean]

"The 1983 version"???

Pamela

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I quote from the Foreword:

     When And Both Were Young was first published, there were a great many very simple things that could not be put in a book that was to be read by children and young adults. Death, for instance: it was assumed that children should be protected from death, and that they should not, in fact, know that death exists. And sex: of course parents produced children in some airy, unphysical fashion. So I had to tone down the effect of Philippa's mother's death, and the interest of other women in her father. And Philippa's and Paul's mutual attraction.
     So the portions that are now in the book that were not in the original are truer to the original typescript than what was actually printed. I have changed only to restore, for this book was written a long time ago, when I was a very young woman, and I've grown a lot, and learned a lot, and all of this change is reflected in what I write now.

I myself won't be able to tell the difference, since I've never read ABWY before. But I think it's kind of cool that she went back and made the book what she wanted it to be.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I remember that one as being particularly good and realistic, though sad.

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

I adore this book! have reread it many times over the years. it is sad in bits, but is such a nice book to curl up with. :o) I've never read it as originally published, just the reprint.

have you read The Small Rain? the beginning of it was published as a YA book, called prelude or some such, so I read that and then later read the small rain. I always think of and both were young and the small rain together as they both start out at boarding schools, though the small rain has much more adult content.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I'm still looking for The Small Rain.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I read THE SMALL RAIN, but don't own it; I think it would have awed me more if I'd read it as a teen, since it addresses such deep issues. Isn't that the one whose characters are in one of her adult novels? I never liked L'Engle's adult novels as much, because they felt too preachy to me.

Hmm. I sound like I don't like L'Engle, which isn't true at all!

[deepad]

Oh, those Zilpha Keatly Snyders I haven't read... you have read her The Changeling, and The Egypt Game, yes? I love her work.
As an aside, I just finished reading Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea quartet, and was jonesing for some intelligent discussion of them... any chance that you may have already talked about them, as you did the Narnia books?
Deepa D.

[larryhammer]

You should read the other two Earthsea books as well—which is to say, there's now six, including a collection Tales from Earthsea, filling in a lot of history, and The Other Wind, a direct sequel to Tehanu that gives us more about the kindred of human and dragon.

---L.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I read the Earthsea books most recently in alteration with Tolkien--and you know, I think I actually prefer Earthsea. Smaller, more human-based stories, to simplify greatly.

TEHANU is a particularly interesting book. I despised it the first time I read it, and longed for the Tenar I knew from TOMBS OF ATUAN. But on reread, a decade later (and as someone more fully adult), I loved it, thought it was the perfect fourth book and was exactly what it needed to be.

I find the change in my take there interesting, and have been pondering it since.

One thing I do think is true is that the first three books are YA, and the last two adult.

I enjoyed THE OTHER WIND (the fifth book), but it did seem the weakest.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I read everything ZKS had written prior to about 1988. The Egypt Game was always one of my favorites.

I think the one that made the greatest impression, although I wouldn't say I liked it per se, was The Witches of Worm.

I haven't posted about the Earthsea books, although I suppose I might, eventually.