@Lady-Merian, re: The Chestnut King:

@Col-Klink, I'm intrigued by your theory about Till We Have Faces vs. the Space Trilogy, but can't really be a data point currently.
Wait, is the Julie Rose translation of Les Miserables the one that referred to the...restaurant (?) as a "greasy spoon"? If so, I've read it.
And that is a great description of the antagonist prince by Brooke.

@Anfinwen, nice! Have you read that last Savery in your list by now?

@SnowAngel, I'm glad you got to enjoy your reread of Tahn more this time around!

@Arin, are you still working your way through Team of Rivals? And I do find Christie rather mixed as well.

You've had lots of interesting books on the go lately, @Jo! And I probably did recommend Silent Night as I own a copy and have read it.

@Narnian78, I've read Black Beauty but not the Emily books. I haven't read any of the Narnia/Lewis books you've been asking about, but my understanding is that Jonathan Rogers is a Christian, yes. And I don't tend to pay attention to different editions of Lewis's books, so I don't factor them into purchasing.

@Silverlily, oh, I remember seeing Shadow Spinner at the library! I think I may've even read it once but I don't remember anything about it if so. I'm glad it helped up fairly well to the reread!

I've been going through some slow reading spots and most of the reading progress I have been making has been bouncing between older mysteries and older children's books. My current read is technically both - Ginny Gordon and the Mystery of the Old Barn by Julie Campbell, published 1951.

@valiantarcher 

It is true that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover or the size of its print, but I like a book that is beautiful to look at. And now that I am older I tend to prefer larger more readable print. So I like it that the newer editions of Lewis’ books are easier to read. As an adult who occasionally reads children’s books I prefer books that are designed for children with colorful illustrations. And I also consider the paper the text is printed on before purchasing the book. A beautiful book means more to me than one that is plain and adequate but unattractive. It all depends on your value and taste.  🙂

I would encourage anyone to read the Emily books by L. M. Montgomery. They are easily as good as Anne of Green Gables, and the author has created a delightful character Emily who is something like Anne but has her own personality. They are wonderfully old fashioned depicting life on Prince Edward Island about one hundred years ago. The three books of the trilogy are Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily’s Quest.

A TV series was made about the books, although I have never seen it. Unfortunately, a lot of great television series from Canada aren’t broadcast here in Michigan. Anne of Green Gables made it to the U. S., but that may have been the only series broadcast on PBS based on L. M. Montgomery’s books.  I have read some reviews about the Emily TV series, and some say it is nothing like the original books. I am not sure if I want to watch it if it is not the same quality as Anne of Green Gables.

Posted by: @valiantarcher

Wait, is the Julie Rose translation of Les Miserables the one that referred to the...restaurant (?) as a "greasy spoon"?

That's the one.

Was Walter Hooper a priest or some kind of minister?  He made available so much of Lewis’s previously unpublished material as books that you wonder if he should have published so much of it.  Did he respect Lewis privacy by publishing diaries of Lewis?  I think Lewis may have objected to at least some of the material made available to the public if he were living today. But then there are people like me who want to know about Lewis’s personal life. I don’t know if it makes much difference now that both Mr. Hooper and Lewis have passed away. Publishing the material hasn’t much affected Lewis’s reputation. I guess Mr. Hooper wanted to give us a true and honest picture of Lewis.  He cannot be blamed for that especially if he was a clergyman.

I just looked it up. Walter Hooper was a priest in the Roman Catholic Church.  I don’t know what his church membership was before that since he apparently was not always Catholic. Perhaps he was a member of the Anglican Church like his friend C. S. Lewis.  It was fortunate that he as Lewis’ secretary saved so much of Lewis’ writing for us to read.

@narnian78 I had to look it up, but yes, Walter Hooper became an ordained Anglican priest a couple of years after Lewis's death, and he served as a chaplain in two of the Oxford colleges. He later converted to Catholicism.

Posted by: @narnian78

He cannot be blamed for that especially if he was a clergyman.

I'm not sure why clergymen should be exempt from blame for anything, but I certainly don't feel that Hooper did anything wrong by publishing previously unpublished writings by Lewis. As you say, none of this has had a bad effect on Lewis's reputation. 

I recently read The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley, and I tried to read Chalice, another book of hers, but I couldn't get into it. 

Blue Sword was good, but it might be a bit overrated. I really like McKinley's writing, but I don't love her plots. I think my favorite book of hers is Beauty. Some of her other books have better writing but Beauty is the one with the best story IMO.

I'm thinking of writing a blog post about McKinley's fairy tale adaptations but if I do, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to share it on Narniaweb because of the adult content in some of her books. 

Posted by: @valiantarcher

@Arin, are you still working your way through Team of Rivals? And I do find Christie rather mixed as well.

Team of Rivals  -- Arguably yes, as i haven't finished it and still have the ebook in my possession. I don't remember the last time i read anything in it, but it's been a loooooong time.

Personally i still find Christie the most appealing of the Golden Age mystery authors, but when you write -- what, 60-70 books? -- they're not all gonna be winners. 

Did Walter Hooper write any books of his own other than Past Watchful Dragons?  He is known for saving C. S. Lewis’s unpublished works, and I wondered if there was anything else that people remembered that he did. I know that he wrote one of the essays in the book The Longing for a Form so he must have been a sort of Lewis scholar. The book is a collection of essays about the works of Lewis. I wonder if Mr. Hooper attended the meetings of the Inklings because he apparently had much of the same tastes in books as Lewis and Tolkien.

Emily’s Quest seems like a great story. I am enjoying reading it as much as any of L. M. Montgomery’s books. Did anyone watch the TV series based on the Emily books? I have never seen it, but I wonder if it was worth watching. According to some of the reviews the adaptation changed too much of the story. I wonder if the actress playing Emily was as good as Megan Follows. Anne of Green Gables (the 1980’s version) was one of the best television versions based on the books.