I’m doing this week’s Booking Through Thursday rather late. Well, you could probably work that out from the day… Never mind, eh, let’s just pretend I spent the past few days pondering the question.
How did you come across your favorite author(s)? Recommended by a friend? Stumbled across at a bookstore? A book given to you as a gift?Was it love at first sight? Or did the love affair evolve over a long acquaintance?
Well, as Margaret points out, this question involves the very tricky decision as to favourite authors. Since I shan’t be compiling a proper list today, I’ll just mention the ones which are undoutedly favourites, and any others which come into my head.
-Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker – this is the one I yammer on and on about! See the 50 Books… Well, this was loaned to me by my piano teacher, after a chance conversation.
-The Diary of a Provincial Lady by EM Delafield – Though this is quite well known in the world of middlebrow interwar fiction, and still in print, I came at it in rather a roundabout way. Bought 1940’s Modern Humour because it had a sketch by AA Milne in it – read the others, and read two by EM Delafield. Those exact two should be available through a link on the excellent EMD website www.starcourse.org/emd but that address isn’t currently working on my computer… Anyway, loved these sketches (actually from As Others Hear Us) and sought out other EMD things from our local library – step forward Provincial Lady.
-the non-Pooh works of AA Milne – saw a Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon early in 2001, and re-read the books. Then sought out Christopher Milne’s The Enchanted Places, then AA Milne’s Year In, Year Out, then his autobiog, then everything else…
–Persephone Books – found a Richmal Crompton novel in a local bookshop and, having loved William, thought I’d give it a go. Loved it, and read many. Later saw a newish looking copy of Family Roundabout at the library, which led me to Persephone…
-Sometimes I just pick up a book more or less at random, and love it. Examples include The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks; The Love Child by Edith Oliver…
-Most books I read are through some sort of connection. A LOT are recommends from dovegreybooks Yahoo Group (responsible for my penury). Some are recommended by parents or friends – though I haven’t had a recommendation from Mum for a while. If you’re reading this, Our Vicar’s Wife, recommend me something!
And for 2) – yes, they were all favourites after the first read! I’m afraid I rarely re-read, and certainly not something I didn’t enjoy much the first time.
Before I go, Nancy asked about the film Amazing Grace – I’ll quote The Carbon Copy’s blog from March 07, when he saw it: “I went to see Amazing Grace last night, the new film based on the life of William Wilberforce (and there’s no real excuse if you don’t know who he is) and I was pretty impressed; not sure how close to the truth it was, but I enjoyed it – and was moved by it. Nice to see a strong(ish) Christian message coming through, and the idea that Wilberforce needed the love of a good woman before he could help abolish slavery is one that I like, even if it’s almost certainly untrue. A worthwhile film.”
Thanks for the mention! It was only on repeated viewings that I realised how much I liked Amazing Grace (and, in fact, that the film was largely true to life).
But your link should point at /diary.html – it’s going nowhere at the moment! I suppose it’s only fair, since the last link on my blog to here was mistyped.
It’s really nice to catch both my sons in one blog! So I’ll add myself to the pot.
Amazing Grace certainly was a good film – and although dealing with horrific cruelty, managed to make the point without gratuitous violence. (It somewhat skimped the fact that his wife was a sadly inefficient housewife – which truly endears her to me!)
Reads: mmm – just read Margery Allingham’s “Sweet Danger” – Campion is just the ticket when you are getting over the flu. Have lined up a P.D.James for ‘afters’!
Since this seems to be a family post I’ll add a couple of comments from OV.
Took a school assembly this morning on the theme “Thinking for yourself”. I chose to speak about William Wilberforce – who for around 20 years pursued a calling by God to get the Slave Trade abolished through parliament. I am coming towards the end of his biography (Not enough mentions of non-fiction on SIAB – William Hague’s book William Wilberforce) and realise how much it cost him to be single focussed (and how the film necessarily couldn’t really show that – maybe I’m moving towards SIAB’s view that you should read the book first!)
Miss Hargreaves is sitting by my bedside! I’m moving rather slowly at the moment with books, but I’ll get to her! I also have the Delafield, which I was so happy to finally find that I want to read this year. By the way I saw Amazing Grace not too long ago and absolutely loved it! I’m afraid I had not recollected hearing about William Wilberforce (but you’ll have to forgive me as I don’t think he’s not generally mentioned in American high school curriculum (though perhaps I’m wrong?). I did want to read about him after seeing the movie. I did read that in actuality his wife stayed out of politics–in the movie you get the feeling that she was very interested in it all. I’d like to read more (properly rather than online) about them.