How many chances will we give an author? And Margery Sharp!
In the first half of the episode, we ask whether we’re one-strike-you’re-out people or if we’re willing to give an author several chances – and which authors we’ve learned to love after a few books. In the second half, we compare Cluny Brown and The Gipsy in the Parlour by Margery Sharp.
Do get in touch to let us know which you’d choose, and any other Sharp novels you’d recommend. You can see the podcast at iTunes, support us at Patreon, and do rate and review us at your podcast app of choice, please! Get in touch also if you have any ideas for future episodes – we’re pretty open to suggestions, especially for the first half of the episodes. Apologies for some dodgy sound quality in Rachel’s recording – and for her washing machine, of course. And the discussion of the novels is a bit shorter than intended because I cut a bit where we gave away too many spoilers!
The books and authors we mention in this episode are:
Progress of Julius by Daphne du Maurier
Mary Anne by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark
Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
A Room With A View by E.M. Forster
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Howards End by E.M. Forster
Charles Dickens
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Melmoth by Sarah Perry
Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald
Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen
To The North by Elizabeth Bowen
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Jose Saramago
Dan Brown
William Shakespeare
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
The Sandcastle by Irish Murdoch
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
Atonement by Ian McEwan
E.M. Delafield
The Foolish Gentlewoman by Margery Sharp
P.G. Wodehouse
The Eye of Love by Margery Sharp
Britannia Mews by Margery Sharp
Lise Lillywhite by Margery Sharp
The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley
The Triumphant Footman by Edith Olivier
Miss Mole by E.H. Young
Chatterton Square by E.H. Young
The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp
Stoner by John Williams
The Easter Parade by Richard Yates
I guess to a certain extent it depends how much I hate a book….. ;D And nowadays I would find myself less tolerant, though I’d be willing to give most authors a bit of a second chance if I could see glimmerings of something. However, some are definitely a no-no after one book – an example I can think of is the Philip Kerr ‘Bernie Gunther’ series of Berlin mysteries. They came highly recommended but the first one was so brutal and violent that I hated it, and I won’t ever go near him again. But if it’s a *serious* author I’d probably have another try – I attempted to read Javier Marias twice but gave up on the second attempt and I don’t think I’ll bother again…
I will often give authors another chance unless the first reading experience was egregiously bad, or there’s something about the author that I truly dislike — I’ll never read another book by Jonathan Franzen or Chuck Palahnuik, for example. I’m lukewarm about Virginia Woolf because I don’t care for stream of consciousness but I hated George Eliot until I decided to give Middlemarch a chance — and even then the first 100 pages were a little dry. But it was worth sticking with and I ended up loving it.
I’ve read two novels by Margery Sharp so far and loved both of them — Cluny Brown and The Nutmeg Tree. And Cluny Brown is on sale right now for Kindle, only $1.99! And you can get a set of the 3 Martha novels for about $15 which is pretty good. I was wondering which one to read next so I will have to get The Gipsy in the Parlor, sounds lovely.