Beyond the Roundels

Forgive yet another post today, but I had collected enough Yule-recs so far to make a post before reveals tomorrow.

( 14 recs in Chalet School, Dungeons & Dragons, Enemy at the Door, Georgette Heyer, Ghosts, The Good Place, Pushing Daisies, Sapphire & Steel, and A Traveller in Time )

I'm still only making an erratic first pass through the collection (mostly alphabetical, but sometimes random & not necessarily reading all the fic in one fandom at a time), but here's an initial recs post before reveals are upon us already:

( 22 recs in The Avengers, Bridgerton series, Cadfael, Fire & Hemlock, Great British Bake-Off, Georgette Heyer, Historical RPF, Jonathan Creek, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, The Lion in Winter, Much Ado About Nothing, North & South, The Pallisers, Press Gang, Pushing Daisies, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), Shirley, Which Witch? & Willow )

I'm still not recovered from last week, although probably some part of that was my fault for trying to make use of that family history offer over the weekend, but there we go. I'll get there, I suppose.

In the meantime, here's a post.

What I've just finished reading

I have read the next two in the Kate Shackleton mystery series by Frances Brody. I still don't know quite what to make of them - I'm enjoying them, I can read them and yet... I don't know.

I also went to the library and got some Regencies to try and get me back reading again a little better, which worked until I was undone by the Thing last week. They were slight, but no Carolyns, at any rate. (Two more MC Beatons, but nothing that reached the ridiculous/sinister heights of the Mannerling idea.)

However, then I got Snowdrift, the reissued collection of Georgette Heyer's short story collection, Pistols For Two, with three rediscovered stories in it! I mean, her short stories aren't anything to her novels, but this was the most exciting thing reading-wise that has happened to me since I was ill, I think. They were slight, but it was very lovely to have new Heyer words for the first time in probably twenty years.

And then I randomly found on a charity book stall in my supermarket, a weird little teen book I used to have a fascination with back in the 90s, The Bewitching of Alison Allbright by Alan Davidson. It is still a very odd little book, not quite like anything else I can think of & enjoyable to have a revisit, even if not at anywhere near the same intensity as back then. It's not a fantasy - the 'bewitching' involves no magic, just the glamour of riches hiding some sinister/obsessive intentions.


What I'm Reading Now

Nothing, really; I need to get a bit better again. HMS Surprise needs more brain than I have, and I've a few other things started and abandoned, so mostly, nothing and occasionally re-reading some of the older stories in Snowdrift. (I like my new copy better than the old one, which is nice, because it's not always the case.)

I am still taking (family history-related) notes from London in the 19th Century by Jerry White.


What I'm Reading Next

Something, I hope. My TBR pile is far larger than my actual reading ability, but you've got to have optimism and hope and ambition, right?

(I still have space for more topics if anyone hasn't left me one yet! The original post is here should you wish to.)

ramasi requested: Book-to-movie (or tv) adaptations you like? (Or didn't like, if you feel like ranting).

My first thought was that this was a very nice question, the second that this could be a very long post if I'm not careful. So I made myself choose 5 favourites, setting myself a rough guideline for inclusion - something along the lines of "it needs to be something I've watched at least twice and should be where I read the book first". (And then promptly broke that rule with my first choice, as you do.) (The pics in this post, btw, are my screencaps, excepting those for the first two, which I stole from Google.)

( Book to Screen adaptations )

It's like someone made a fic exchange especially for me (and I probably won't even be able to play). But I know lots of you like plenty of YA/children's books, so go here and find out more - and have some fun brainstorming over the nominations!



A Kids' and YA Book Fic Exchange

The banner goes to the Dreamwidth side, but it's on LJ, too: fic_corner

I usually ignore these, but, oh well, why not? I'm a little bored tonight. So, in what seems to be a sort of updated version of the BBC's Big Read list (with a mystery missing no. 19. I think I shall add in something I like. *evil*). Taken from justice_turtle:

There were rules, but I'm just going to bold the ones I've actually read, and make any relevant notes next to any of the others. I find predicting what I will or won't read in the future is unreliable. I think someone reckons the average most people will have read is 6. I think that's a bit pessimistic. I also, since I nicked it of JT, put in the full list of Carnegie winners as a contrast to the Newbery list. (They are the UK and US equivalents - the Newbery came first, though.)

( Long booklist is long )

( Carnegie winners )

Firstly, any icons I make for this challenge will be snaggable in the usual way (unless otherwise stated). And if I'm talking about books/TV/films etc, I will try not to be spoilerish.

So, here goes... (You will soon see why I wanted to pair these two).

1. Book: Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce (1958)



"Time no longer..." murmured Tom, and thought of all the clocks in the world stopping ticking, and their striking stopped too, drowned and stopped forever by the sound of a great Trumpet. "Time no longer..." repeated Tom; and the three words began to seem full of enormous possibilities.

( Tom's Midnight Garden )


2. Book: A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley (1939)



I smell the hot scents of the herb garden drenched in sunshine, and the perfume of the honeysuckle after rain, but stronger than these is the rich fragrance of the old house, made up of wood-smoke, haystacks, and old old age, mingled together indissolubly. All these scents and sounds are part of the story I have to tell, with light and darkness, shadows and tragedy interwoven.

( A Traveller in Time )

Credits: Icon textures by tiger_tyger.

ETA: persiflage_1 and dbskyler each gave me seven subjects for a meme recently. I have decided now to make sure I included those subjects somewhere in this challenge. Indeed, most of them I already had without even thinking when I went to check! (I'm not sure about the lemons, though, but we'll see... If I can fit lemons in somewhere, I will.)

I nicked this off daibhid_c- how could I, a children's librarian, pass up on this one? Of course, it's odd for me, as this meme assumes one has stopped reading children's books. Heh.

( Books, glorious books! )