finrod

Lafcadio Wluiki the picaresque hero of The Vatican Cellars (Andr

Hello Kate, I'm sure you'll enjoy it here.

I have noticed that sometimes I frighten people; what they really fear is themselves. They think it is I who scare them, but it is the dwarf within them, the ape-faced manlike being who sticks up his head from the depths of their souls. Set in a renaissance Italy of warring city-states. Piccoline (the protagonist) comments upon the court's prurience and political intrigue as the city is besieged. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dwarf

Welcome JustMe I think you'll enjoy it here!

No pretence that this is a definitive list, my recommendations include (I try not to repeat suggestions already made): Peloponnesian War (431 - 404 BC, Athens v Sparta) Goat Song, Frank Yerby The Last of the Wine,Mary Renault Arthur The Great Captains, Henry Treece Sword at Sunset, Rosemary Sutcliffe Alfred The King of Athelney,Alfred Duggan Athelstan The Half Brothers (cannot remember author) Clontarf (1014, Ireland) The Kings in Winter, Cecelia Holland (Vikings and irish) 1066 The Firedrake, Cecelia Holland The Crusades History: The Crusades (Vols I-IV), Sir Steven Runciman, vivid, gripping history Literature: The Alexiad, Anna Comnena (but also used as a history source being largely contemporary Count Bohemond, Alfred Duggan (imho his finest, it also draws directly from Alexiad) Seven Years War/Indian wars (1756-1763) The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, James Fenimore Cooper Northwest Passage, Kenneth Roberts (first half made into an excellent 1940 film) American War of Independence Sergeant Lamb of the Ninth, Robert Graves Drums Along the Mohawk, Walter D Edmonds (made into a great film by John Ford, the film is even better, showing different balanced viewpoints (both patriot and loyalist). American Civil War History: The Civil War, Ken Burns (some may remember the excellent TV series, the war is told via contemporary photographs, and extracts from diarists, letters, with annotations from historians. Literature: The March E L Doctorow (Sherman's 600 mile march to the sea) The Great War (& Russian Civil War) History : Facing Armageddon, various, edited by Hugh Cecil & Peter Liddle - 64 scholars from all over the globe examine the experience of the First World War from many perspectives (including military, home front, occupation etc) - The First World War, Hew Strachan The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T E Lawrence Tommy, Richard Holmes anything by Gary Sheffield Literature : The Middle Parts of Fortune, Frederic Manning (esteemed by military historians as an authentic account, as the author saw front-line service in the war), bowdlerised version Her Privates We. Slow Approach of Thunder, Konstantin Paustovsky (part of autobiographical work, rejected for military service due to short-sightedness, author became a medical orderly) With the Armies of the Tsar, A Nurse at the Russian Front in War and Revolution, 1914-1918,Frances Farmborough Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak And Quiet Flows the Don and The Don Flows Home to the Sea, Mikhail Sholokhov, beautiful sweeping account of various Don Cossacks, men and women, rich and poor, bolsheviks and whites.Second World War Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman, Stalingrad and account of Jewish nuclear scientists in Soviet Russia, German POW camp etc

Eddie: there's little need to wait. All three are stand-alone stories. It's true that Cities of the Plain brings together the two protagonists from Pretty Horses and The Crossing, but they do not need to be read in sequence.

This book by Kilgore Trout aka Philip Jos

My favourite poem is Jabberwocky, but someone's already had that one. Next in line is The Jumblies, by Edward Lear (and I won't have a word said against him!) They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter's morn, on a stormy day, In a Sieve they went to sea! And when the Sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, 'You'll all be drowned!' They called aloud, 'Our Sieve ain't big, But we don't care a button! we don't care a fig! In a Sieve we'll go to sea!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. They sailed away in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they sailed so fast, With only a beautiful pea-green veil Tied with a riband by way of a sail, To a small tobacco-pipe mast; And every one said, who saw them go, 'O won't they be soon upset, you know! For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long, And happen what may, it's extremely wrong In a Sieve to sail so fast!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. The water it soon came in, it did, The water it soon came in; So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet In a pinky paper all folded neat, And they fastened it down with a pin. And they passed the night in a crockery-jar, And each of them said, 'How wise we are! Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long, Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong, While round in our Sieve we spin!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. And all night long they sailed away; And when the sun went down, They whistled and warbled a moony song To the echoing sound of a coppery gong, In the shade of the mountains brown. 'O Timballo! How happy we are, When we live in a Sieve and a crockery-jar, And all night long in the moonlight pale, We sail away with a pea-green sail, In the shade of the mountains brown!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. They sailed to the Western Sea, they did, To a land all covered with trees, And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart, And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart, And a hive of silvery Bees. And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws, And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws, And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree, And no end of Stilton Cheese. Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. And in twenty years they all came back, In twenty years or more, And every one said, 'How tall they've grown! For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone, And the hills of the Chankly Bore!' And they drank their health, and gave them a feast Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast; And every one said, 'If we only live, We too will go to sea in a Sieve,--- To the hills of the Chankly Bore!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve

You are welcome, just remember I'm not responsible when you come down with food poisoning.

Have you ever read a book, and thought, how come no-one else knows about this? To get the ball rolling: Grendel, 1971 by John Gardner (not the James Bond thriller-writer), 1933-1882. The American author is listed as an academic (Old and Middle English) who taught at Southern Illinois University. He has since written Jason and Medea which I am trying to track down(I like the Greek myth and already own Robert Graves' The Golden Fleece and used to have Henry Treece's Jason (before a close relative made off with it). Beowulf, but from the "monster's" perpective. No short precis of this remarkable novel could suggest the complexity of thought, richness of imagery and the wonder of language which make it the perfect work of art that it is. Derek Stanford, The Scotsman I first read this when I was fourteen or fifteen and it knocked my socks off. I read it again recently, over thirty years later and my feet are chilly even now. With the release of the 'Beowulf' film, and Seamus Heaney's excellent re-interpretation, I thought it apposite to draw attention to this neglected masterpiece. Incidentally, I particular enjoyed Seamus Heaney's return to the narrative form of the Beowulf epic, as narrated on BBC Radio Four. After all, the tale stems from a largely pre-literate age.

I shall certainly try. Are you having a giraffe?

Thanks for this O Steelclaw.

Thank you Adam - my family and friends tend to like them, apart from when I overdo the heat (not often). I also did the risotto (which is distinctly vegetarian) and a carnivore friend commented Yeah, but it could do with some meat in it!.