Thanks for all of the Chesterton suggestions! I've found quite a few of these titles over on LibriVox, and I'm looking forward to starting The Man Who Was Thursday when I'm finished with this last round of Father Brown stories. The plot looks really interesting, and I love the title!

I haven't yet read The Prisoner of Zenda, Meltintalle, but I downloaded it today and I'll be starting it soon! It looks like a fun, breezy read with all of the elements of a good story.

Today I finished The Light Princess by George MacDonald. I've mostly focused on his religious writings over the past few years, but a couple of months ago I read The Day Boy and the Night Girl and liked it, so I thought I would try some more of his short fairy tales. The Light Princess was a lot more peculiar and interesting than I expected, and I really enjoyed it. I was so surprised when

Finished Daughter of Light. I liked it well enough, but thought that some of the friendships should have been shown instead of mentioned as an established thing--if they had been fleshed out, I think it would have kicked my overall impression much higher.

After that I picked up the prequel(?) novella for Patrick Carr's new series: By Divine Right and the closest brief summary is fantasy police procedural. I don't know if it's because it was much shorter and so the story has to hang together better, but I think this is my favorite of his so far.

I also read Georgette Heyer's The Unknown Ajax which was not quite as side-splittingly funny as some have been, but has secret passages and stately matrons who see more than they let on and officers of the law who try SO HARD and yet...

Still working on The Fellowship: Literary Lives of the Inklings; I'm just about past the point where Tolkien wrote The Hobbit.

I also read Georgette Heyer's The Unknown Ajax

Have you read "A Civil Contract" by Georgette Heyer? I really love it! The plot includes a lot of Napoleonic history and everyday life. It's sort of an anti-romance, but somehow it's pleasing and enjoyable.

I haven't yet read The Prisoner of Zenda, Meltintalle, but I downloaded it today and I'll be starting it soon! It looks like a fun, breezy read with all of the elements of a good story.

A great book! I found it hard to keep track of all the names and who was who when I first read it. I can't wait to hear what you think! There are also a couple of good movie adaptions.

I recently read a really good book called "The Blue Castle" by L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables). I read the whole thing in a day and paid for it with a migraine, but I don't regret it.
All the little details of the story tie together so nicely, and the ending is so satisfying.
Come to find out someone recorded it and put it on Youtube, so I'm listening to it right now as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOzqibjZVyI

Anfinwen, I haven't read A Civil Contract, but that does sound like something I'd enjoy. I'll add it to my list.

(Do you like the 30's or 50's adaptation of Zenda? )

I remember thinking, from the title, that The Blue Castle would be a historical novel, but it wasn't. I enjoyed it a lot anyway.

I finished The Prisoner of Zenda a couple of days ago, Anfinwen! I really enjoyed it; it was great fun from beginning to end. I liked the writing style and narrative tone; it really made you feel like someone was telling you about a genuine chapter in their life, albeit a very remarkable one!

Like you, I had a little trouble keeping track of all of the characters, especially who's who of the Six. The fact that I was listening to it rather than reading it didn't help much with that! (When I looked up the book on Project Gutenberg to re-read a scene I hadn't quite gotten the gist of, I was scandalized to realize that Sapt wasn't spelled with a Z. ) In spite of this little difficulty, though, I appreciated the cast of characters; so many lively portraits of contrasting personalities there. Aside from our hero, I think my favorite character was Fritz; he was such a sweetheart.

*ears perk at Meltintalle's mention of 30s and 50s film adaptations* I shall have to look into those; I love old films.

And while we're on the topic of classic adventure novels, has anybody read Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini? I was thinking about putting that on my TBR (or perhaps I should say TBL: to-be-listened!), but I don't know very much about it other than the general plot and that the opening line is a zinger.

*saves the link to the Youtube reading of The Blue Castle to her bookmarks* Seems like a nice recording! I actually downloaded Anne of the Island the other day because I never got around to reading the third book in the series as a child and there's a YouTube channel that is adapting it right now. I'd like to watch it, but I don't want to be spoiled, so I'll be listening to the original first.

I don't think I ever tried to keep track of the Six. There's a distant prequel, also set in Zenda, called The Heart of Princess Osra and a sequel with Fritz as the narrator (but it's darker in tone than the original, and saaaaaaaaad, so I think of it as little as possible) called Rupert of Hentzau.

Scaramouche and Captain Blood are my favorite Sabatini novels; I was less impressed by Sea Hawk--I think because it reminded me of a rehash of Captain Blood except with some Robinson Crusoe thrown in?

(Do you like the 30's or 50's adaptation of Zenda? )

I've only seen the 1937 version, but I really liked it.

Aside from our hero, I think my favorite character was Fritz; he was such a sweetheart.

He's is! I really like Flavia and Antoinette. They are such strong characters.

There's a distant prequel, also set in Zenda, called The Heart of Princess Osra and a sequel with Fritz as the narrator (but it's darker in tone than the original, and saaaaaaaaad, so I think of it as little as possible) called Rupert of Hentzau.

Oh yes, Rupert of Hentzau is sad! But, at the same time, it's wonderful to find out what happened to the different characters and where they all ended up.

I finished up 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' last night. I liked it a lot more than Bradbery's 'The Martian Chronicles' for a couple reasons. One is that it was actually a story instead of several short stories that didn't quite tie together for me. And the other is that I think I will always lean towards fantasy instead of sci-fi.
I appreciated that it was scary without the gore too. Just suspenseful.
Jo, since we were talking about this the other day, I wanted to tell you that probably my least favorite thing about it is the poetic way Bradbery writes, and his (imho) over-describing EVERYTHING. It's hard for me to get through. It does take a while for the story to get going, but once it does, it's good. You might take another stab at it to see if you like it once you get past the long introduction. (Think 'On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkenss' )
I was wondering, does anybody know if this was the story that first inspired bad circuses?
Thanks for recommending it Eli!

I'm glad you enjoyed it, FK. If you get a chance, you should check out the film adaptation. Bradbury wrote the screenplay, and it does a pretty good job of sticking to the book.

It's funny that you say Bradbury's poetic style is one of your detractions, because it's one of the things I love about him; to each their own, I guess.

I believe there's an earlier book about sinister carnivals, The Circus of Dr. Lao (which inspired the movie The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao), that might have influenced Bradbury.

I joined Goodreads a couple months ago and I set a goal of 100 books for 2016. I've been working on a couple of lists: one of books I want to reread and one of books to get from the library. And I have a very short list to buy, it's like three books. I know it's really short, but so is the amount of space left on my book shelves.

Books read so far this year Shadowed by Grace by Cara Putman, The Painter's Daughter by Julie Klassen, The Lost Heiress by Roseanna M. White, and Lizzy & Jane by Katherine Reay.

The Painter's Daughter was disappointing. The story started out okay, but the "flashbacks" killed for me. I finished it, but it's not a book I would read again. Every time I read one of Julie Klassen's books I expect it to be better than her other books and then they aren't.

The Lost Heiress was quite interesting, I loved the mystery in the story. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

SnowAngel

Well, I searched through the last year of posts and can't seem to find the one I thought I might have made. Not very good at keeping up the discussion.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone here has read any of Marilynne Robinson's works? And what did you think? She has quickly become my favorite author; and Gilead quickly became my favorite book.

Has anybody read 'The Green Ember' ? And if so, did you like it? It was very highly rated by a Christian site I follow so I was curious for a second opinion.

I have now! I liked it very much. Growing up with Watership Down and Redwall I have a fondness for talking rabbits and such. The Green Ember is a lovely little story about a brother and sister who stick together even when frustrated with each other while larger events play out around them. It's got a nice sense of scale: there's enough at stake that it matters and there's history but nothing is Epic for Epic's sake. Also, there are illustrations and a story in stained glass windows.

Mel, I got it for Christmas and it's next on my list. It's been long enough since I've read any of the Redwall series that I'm looking forward to it!

I just finished up Serafina and the Black Cloak. I cannot for the life of me figure out where I saw this one recommended. Anyways, it was really good, but I had to laugh at the irony that I read it right after Something Wicked. Another book about childrens' souls being stolen by big, bad, men. Anyways, my favorite non-spoiler thing about this book was the fact that it was a whodunit and the main character really was guessing just about everybody. It always annoys me when the primary character focuses in on one person assuming they're the baddie and it turns out to be this other guy standing on the sideline. Everybody was a suspect, which was cool.
My biggest gripe was that the character starts off with a lower class accent at the beginning of the book and is talking like everybody else at the end.

I started out the new year with a re-read and a new book. The re-read was Watership Down, and the new read was My Diary from the Edge of the World by Joni Lynn Anderson. I picked it up just intending to skim in a Barnes & Noble. Normally when i skim a book, eventually i'll just jump to the ending to see what happened, but with this one i found myself resisting doing that because i didn't want to miss what happened in-between. I figured that made it worth buying.

My Diary from the Edge of the World is told from the perspective of twelve-year-old Gracie Lockwood, who lives in a world with dragons that burn down businesses during their migration to South America, sasquatches that helped fight the Civil War, and Dark Clouds that come for people when it's their time to die. Of course, all this is fairly average for Gracie. Then a Dark Cloud shows up on her front lawn. Desperate to save their sickly youngest, Sam, the Lockwoods put their house on the market, buy a Winnebago, load up what they can of their possessions, and set off on a dangerous journey, to find a place only Gracie's father believes exists: the Extraordinary World, an amazing place where the world is round, magical creatures don't exist, and most importantly, there are no Dark Clouds.

I'd give it about 4 out of 5. The writing was a little too ... mature, i guess, for a twelve-year-old, but her opinions seemed more age-appropriate. The world-building is adequate, but i think if she'd tried to describe it more, the disparate elements would clash too much for it to be believable. I definitely liked the lack of a romance between Gracie and the boy who joins them on their journey. The story is mostly about the relationship between Gracie and her family, particularly her older sister Millie and her father.

Does anyone remember the Bobbsey Twins, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew?