@aileth, oooh, you've read The Shuttle too? I read that for the first time last year... some friends had been discussing how to adapt it as a musical and I wanted to know what they were talking about.  

I also read Mrs. Buncle's Book last year and would love to read more like it. *puts Vittoria Cottage and The English Air on the to-read list*

My current library hauls have all been gardening books. I'm craving flowers and dreaming of fresh tomatoes. They're all lighter fare than my previous selection, Dominion by Tom Holland, where the author tries to trace the influence of Christianity on modern thought. It's an ambitious undertaking and one of the most comprehensive overviews of church history I've read.

@Mel, I have heard so much about Dominion, and now your post has me even more curious. I think I need to read that one at some point.

Miss Buncle's Book: I had seen it for years one of my parents' (many) bookshelves, but had never picked it up. Now that I have been going through all their things lately, I came across the book again. It is possibly a first or second edition, as there is no publishing page, it smells and looks very old (character-plus!), and I believe belonged originally to my grandparents.  

My grandparents also specifically left me the Red Pepper Burns books. I read the first one, and, while it was okay and fun, at times, it just seemed a bit silly for my tastes. I did not pursue the rest of the series. My grandparents were avid and deep readers, so it surprised me that they must have enjoyed this to pass it down. Anyway, each to his own. So, yes, @aileth, I gave up on this author because of my first impression.  

Posted by: @valiantarcher

though I don't remember too much about their portrayal of Mrs. Sowerby.

@valiantarcher, just a clarification: I was referring to Martha Sowerby in FotF's drama, Mary's maid at Misselthwaite Manor, not her mother. Although the latter seems like a really special lady too, the little we encounter her ... aside from that one unusual, concerning element ( ).

EDIT: I also found in my parents' collection more of Lloyd C. Douglas books. I have previously read a few times each The Robe (1942) and The Big Fisherman (1948), but these I discovered are the two in the Magnificent Obsession series, Magnificent Obsession (1929) and Doctor Hudson's Secret Journal (1939), plus the stand-alone Disputed passage (1939). No idea what any of these are like, so if anyone here has read them, I'd like to hear your opinion.  

Posted by: @valiantarcher

I struggled to make it through Burnett's quasi-spiritualism in her handling of Magic (I was especially disappointed in Mrs. Sowerby's chalking it up to the Big Good Thing or whatever instead of pointing children to God - she should've known better)

Not wanting to start a theological debate, but out of genuine interest — especially as others here have now commented on it too — why would this be a problem, especially among fans of Narnia? The Secret Garden has always been one of my favourite children's books, and while the quasi-spiritual elements in it probably aren't "orthodox" according to any specific religion (Christianity or otherwise), I can't see anything very concerning about them either. In fact, the part that stuck in my memory most as a child (growing up in a totally non-religious family) was when Dickon sings the Doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow", which struck me as a beautiful kind of poetry I'd hardly ever heard before. As an adult, I'm now aware it's straight-up Church of England!  

I've also always taken Mrs Sowerby's concept of the "Big Good Thing" as a thinly veiled reference to God in a simple way that young readers could grasp without feeling they're being preached at (unlike the heavy churchy moralising of so many Victorian / Edwardian-era writers); details of who that "Big Good" One is, and who His Son is, can always be filled in later when one is older (they were for me, anyway). And while referring to divine power as "Magic" isn't orthodox either, I always felt it was clear enough from the context of the story that this wasn't a reference to any kind of occult power that humans (let alone demonic beings) could try to wield for their own ends. Don't we all know a whole series of books that never once mention the term "God", or "Jesus" for that matter, and yet most people here would agree those books are meant to point children in just that direction — and indeed, at least one of those books refers to the Deep Magic and the Deeper Magic that were put into this fantasy world at the beginning and before the beginning... Seriously, I'm just wondering, why would some see that as a concern in The Secret Garden, but not in Narnia?

(Apologies if this is off-topic — I don't mind if it's moved to a different thread — or is touching on things that aren't meant to be discussed on NarniaWeb. I should add that I don't know much at all about Frances Hodgson Burnett's personal religious beliefs, except that Wikipedia states that she "embraced Spiritualism and Christian Science". I doubt that's entirely accurate, since Spiritualism and Christian Science are explicitly not compatible — I'm a Christian Scientist myself and very familiar with that theology. I seem to recall reading somewhere else that Burnett was attached to the Unity Church, which is something like a spin-off of a spin-off of Christian Science, but not the same thing. But I don't know enough about either that teaching, or Burnett herself, to come to any conclusions. )

@Jo, oh, sorry, I completely missed which Sowerby you were talking about.

@Courtenay, it has less to do with the magic itself and more how it's handled and what/who it points to in each story. I think the shortest I can put it is that in The Secret Garden, Burnett kind of leaves it with a 'there's a benevolent force out there greater than us - it could be God or it could be Magic, who can say' view; it's not an occult view of magic, as you said, but it's also not clearly pointing to God (though, as you said, one could interpret it that way - but one could also interpret it differently). In Narnia, even if never mentioned by name, Lewis very clearly points to Jesus and God through Aslan and the Emperor - and magic (unless used evilly or foolishly) is an outworking of the Emperor; it's not perfect, but the direction is there.
I'm sure it doesn't bother a lot of people and others may have other thoughts about it, but I found it very unsatisfying and thus hard to enjoy (I also was not very fond of 'if you think it hard enough you can make it happen' element for reasons that had nothing to do with magic) in The Secret Garden. Does that clarification make sense?

@valiantarcher Yes, that does make sense, thank you.   To be fair, it's a long time since I last read The Secret Garden and my copy of it is back at my parents' house in Australia, so I haven't been over those particular sections in recent years to see what I think of them these days. 

Ok! Books. ^_^

Recently I have read:

Castle in the Stars: A Frenchman on Mars by Alex Alice. Good solid adventure, starts in media res but gives you a quick intro to the series at the beginning, very pretty illustrations with kind of a soft watercolory look to them.

Red Bird Sings: The Story of Zitkala-Sa, Native American Author, Musician, and Activist adapted by Gina Capaldi and Q.L. Pierce. An introduction to an interesting human in a difficult period in history, with painterly earth-tone illustrations.

A poetry anthology with an emphasis on life/death cycles and wetland wildlife.

Lionheart by Richard Collingridge. Simple prose, very evocative and daydreamy bright-colored illustrations. A story about courage.

A YA fantasy with fun worldbuilding but some forum-inappropriate content, in which the protagonist is a young co-monarch trying to learn the ropes before the deadline comes due for her to attempt an underworld journey.

An adult fantasy novella with some forum-inappropriate content featuring an heiress in a neo-Victorian setting with fairies trying to make amends for an injustice committed by her father.

Chivalry by Neil Gaiman and Coleen Doran. A beautiful, whimsical, and odd slow-paced character-driven graphic novel about an eccentric older lady who found the Holy Grail in a thrift shop, and the earnest young knight who wants to win it back from her.

A well-written but weird scifi novel with some forum-inappropriate content in which a first contact situation leads to humanity trying to prove their sapience to the alien community in a galactic singing competition. Extremely wide variety of alien life with sometimes conflicting interests and needs, satirical political commentary, and ultimately a deep thread of hope.