BookJumper

I'm now a proud owner of my very own signed copy of this - thank you Linda ! I shall let you know my innermost thoughts on the matter as soon as they become available...

I am a 12yr-old orphan with pepper-back eyes, a love for words and a penchant for mischief, as well as a stubborn goose under my arm.

... I must say Pablo and Andy, you make that of being a female author an uphill struggle indeed! I know I've admitted earlier to having a male-dominated bookshelf and steering well clear of the Kinsellas and Gregorys of the world, but not all women writers are Katie Fforde. Some may be more like Jasper Fforde, if you give them a chance to prove it to you. I suggest shopping by genre, rather than gender; the sparkly covers of chick-lit and the flamboyand dresses of historical romance are fairly self-evident - should these be missing, and upon reading the blurb you do no stumble across words of soppiness and trauma, give the female author in your hand a chance... you might be surprised by the high ideas that can be made to harbour in our needlepoint minds. I'd hate to think someone would put my (future) book back on the shelf upon noting my name and deciding that, since I'm a girl, it necessarily follows I write for a public of giggly girls.

The first five that spring to mind are: "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco: dull, pretentious (and I'm usually a fan of pretentiousness! but Umby takes it to a whole new dimension), did I mention dull? Might well be the only film that actually improved on its book. "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells. I absolutely adored "War of the Worlds", which is at least five times as long - but then, those were hundreds of pages where things happened. By contrast, this very slim volume is nonexistent in contents. It took me three months of summer holidays to read... that's about a page a day before throwing the book down in dispair and dismay. "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" by Stephen Donaldson: featuring the most unlikeable, ungrateful, useless so-called hero in the history of literature. Don't harbour, as I did, the hope that an illuminating epiphany will happen if you just bear with it one more page/volume; it doesn't. Any "Harry Potter" between vol. 5 and the end: for me, the magic quite simply died at the end of "The Goblet of Fire". I didn't even bother with the last few chapters of 5, the second half of 6 and most of 7 - this was no longer the world which had captured me; and to think I waited so long for 5 to come out. In terms of expectations, possibly the worst literary let-down of my life. "Twilight": I apologise in advance to all twilighters here, but... I found this so predictable, unbelievable (the clumsy new girl in town desired by every boy in school? did this woman ever go to high school?!) and badly-written I could not persuade myself to trudge beyond page 120. I might have tried to ignore the writing had the plot gripped me, but I found the characters too soppy/two-dimensional and the romance too sudden/devoid of any real foundation/chemistry to make me care.

"Dinotopia" by James Gurney and "Voyage of the Basset" by James C. Christensen are imaginative, adventurous, superbly illustrated tales of travels, magical creatures, &tc. They both have a hefty number of sequels (particularly "Basset"); I have only read the originals but if your daughter likes those and wants more of the same, it's there.

As a poet/poetry aficionado worried about the waning popularity of the craft, count me in.

HAMLET ACT FIVE, SCENE TWO !

At the moment my shelves are like my CD racks, dominated by men. In music, that's because I can't stand high-pitched voices, hence why the few female vocalists that do put in an appearance are the big-voiced girls like Bonnie Tyler. As for books... There are quite a few female writers I adore, from the classics (Austen, Mary Shelley & Co.) to my favourite author from childhood (prolific Italian author Bianca Pitzorno), and I most certainly will not think twice about the sex of the author while perusing a book. That said, some of the fields in which women writers are currently predominant (chick-lit and historical romance) hold no interest for me; so it's just a mathemathical consequence of being drawn to the male-dominated sections of Waterstone's that I mostly have men on my shelves. On the other hand, I'm newly rediscovering the pleasures of children's literature and straight fantasy (again, female-led fields), so maybe the shelves shall soon be balanced?

For my party of eight I'd have to have: John Milton Lord Byron Jane Austen Albert Einstein John Lennon Stephen Fry Jasper Fforde I could have said William Shakespeare, but how could he ever measure up to my idolatrous expectations?

Roxi - the list is adjourned happy stealing! ETA: you might be interested to discover Tom "The Vampyre" Holland is also the author of further gothic-literary mishmashes "Supping with Panthers" and "Deliver Us from Evil".

Yersm, themes too close to home for comfort about halfway . On a positive note, the book is so good I fully intend to pick it up again in less troubled times (books that make me that uncomfortable tend to be gifted/swapped/charity-swapped asap as I can't even bear to have the spine looking at me, so me keeping this is a huge compliment). Watch this space, you title-nabber; I shall shortly be adjourning the list with the most recent additions to the shelf of BookJumper (as well as quite possibly prioritising it in the clever manner suggested in a thread whose author eludes me now).

YAY! for the ex-renegade mojo! I really need to get me a copy of "American Gods" I think; I've already loved "Anansi Boys" (and "Neverwhere", "Stardust", what volumes I've read of "The Sandman", as well as the Pratchett collaboration "Good Omens") and "American Gods" seems to polarise a lot - everyone I know who's read it either adored it or considered it pretentious so I want to join the debate!! I have "Lud-in-the-Mist" on my TBR too; your recommendation (and Neil's!) might just make it go bumpity-bump...

"The Eyre Affair" - glad to know you won't be making my mistake of unwittingly trying to start four books in! Post #3 in this thread contains my review if you're interested. Once again, I am flattered. Admittedly, I do have an eclectic, far-reaching, odd-title-finding taste ! I KNOW!! That was just my reaction when I first stumbled across it; I was like: "Byron = vampire? HELL YEAH!" It is also very well-written, which helps - a good blend of academic knowledge and gothic atmosphere.

I see where you're coming from Book maniac, and I mostly agree - films rarely do justice to books, if only because they tend to 1. leave out so much and 2. make people/things/places nothing like you imagine them. Yet, there are cases in which the opposite has happened: much as I loved "Stardust" the novel (and much as I bemoaned the absence in the movie of the delighful floppy-eared creature), for Stardust Neil Gaiman fleshed out the rather anonymous pirate captain of the book into the unforgettable Capt. Shakespeare, unforgettably pulled off by Robert De Niro. Sometimes, an actor will be so right for a character you will find yourself unable to imagine them any other way thereafter: while I don't picture Daniel Radcliffe when I think of Harry Potter, I do and always will equate Rupert Grint with Ron, Alan Rickman with Snape, and especially Kenneth Branagh with Gilderoy Lockheart. Turning things as magically subjective as books into films is never going to be an easy task, and admittedly it is usually performed to a lesser standard than it could and should be; however, miracles do happen .

Home soon yay: Italy = best icecream in the world! I'm going to get me down to the parlour in front of my old primary school, the one that's so good it has been known to inspire queues in the middle of winter, the one with 30-odd homemade flavours, and get me my staple cone: melon, yoghurt, liquorice and cinnamon. YUMMEH!

The Swamp of Sorrow (thank the OH for that one, I could only remember the name in Italian). Poor Artax... ! I'd better prepare the tissues then - it might well be bumped up the TBR if you keep commending it that highly

I admit to not having gotten round to read any of them yet, although I fully intend to make up for this in the future - I love the film of "A Room with a View" so I'll probably start with that I shall let you know my thoughts.

Although I love the first film (two and three are complete and utter rubbish), I'm pretty sure I wouldn't love it as much had I read the book first and realised just how much they left out. Now that was a movie to make "Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban" look faithful! It is only based on the first part of the book, that is to say, less than 200 paperback pages; yet, they managed to cut half of it, and distort the other half. One example? Falkor, the adorable Luckdragon I was not surprised to find out that Michael Ende, the author of "The Neverending Story", sued the movie company to try and prevent them from using the same title because he felt they weren't committed to telling his story at all. Sadly, he lost. Though I will always cherish the movie in the way one does bits of childhood, it pales in comparison to the novel and should not put anyone off trying to read it, as it is exquisite, magical, beautifully written, vividly evoked, ridden with philosophy profound but not dense. Re: "Firmin", I forgot to add it to my TBR as it's currently at home; will make sure to pick it up next week and bring it back to London with me. It sounds brilliant and according to my nan (the pickiest reader on the planet, I assure you) it is truly a read to cherish so I hope I will, too! The only thing that bugs me ever so slightly is that the very first short story I remember writing ("The Library Mouse" by Giulia aged 6 or 7, with cute drawing) has a nigh on identical plot and message.... I feel plagiarised!

I'm actually avoiding this due to content, but thanks all the same for the suggestion. Hope you enjoy it. Indeed you may. I have tried to get into Borges before and failed but I remember thinking at the time that I was willing to ascribe the lack of grippage to the translation (my mum's English edition of "Labyrinths") so I will take your advice - if I can find an Italian edition of "The Book of Imaginary Beings" with the pretty pictures, that is... Nooo, how could you not love this? IMHO it's a gorgeous book! Any specific reason for your dislike, or did it just not grab you?

Joan of Arcadia. Marvellous series - human, touching, poignant, profound, made you feel and think and laugh and cry so of course, it couldn't do.

For completely different reasons, I hated this too. The OH made me watch this - I shall never forgive. Horrible film, it is scarring yet teaches you nothing. I have let heavy films such as Dead Man Walking, American History X, The 25th Hour etc. scar me as they actually had a message to get across which required that kind of extreme impact; The History of Violence was very hard to watch, yet left me with nothing at all to account for my sacrifice. You are right Roxi, that is profound.

Oh good. I'd seen this before and for one reason or another always left it there, but then Neil Gaiman's endorsement (and, let us face it, his direct homage in "Stardust") must have swayed me...

Added to the wishlist; this is exactly the type of thing I'm looking for so thank you . I've tried this once before and couldn't get into it, however my mum swears by it and she has never been wrong in recommending a book to me before so I suppose I'll try again - going home next week so I could nab her copy and then buy my own upon my return if I am better impressed this time round. Thank you and of course, you may add whatsoever books about books you may wish. This sounds intriguing, however I might postpone getting it as the central question (are we as Westeners seeking to impose our imperialistic dominance over other countries by pretending to enlighten them about literature?) is one I'm currently overdosing on in uni... What were your own thoughts about this? I must admit I encountered it during my cross-referencing travels yet for whatever reason (and I know it's not the mixed reviews as I'm not that easily swayed; mixed reviews didn't dissuade me from buying "Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs") it didn't leap out at me making "buy me buy me" noises. Please, tell me why I'm wrong. Indeed it sounds good; even better in that it's got a prequel by the magnificent title of "Parnassus on Wheels", about a travelling bookmobile. The impoverished can download/read it online, freely and legally, from the nice people over at Project Gutemberg, who also kindly provide the text for The Haunted Bookshop, and in fact for what I believe is Christopher's complete output. Good place to read a chapter or two and see if one is interested, methinks.

Would this be This sounds suspiciously like "Lud-in-the-Mist" by Hope Mirrlees - is it? Haven't read it yet but it's on the shelf eagerly awaiting for me to pick it up... any good?

Lately the sentence "Even though I usually don't like poetry" and variations thereon seem to be cropping up all around the forum. As someone who loves, studies and writes verse, the very notion interests (not to mention concerns) me somewhat. I guess my question for all you people who don't usually like poetry is... why not? *don't hit the poet! we're consumptive & weak in constitution*