@GTG woow! that's awesome! A musical? What part did she get???

I'm going to read Wuthering Heights! Is it nice? Well I do hope it is. I just love romantic books!

So, question: which of these are your favorites, and which ones do your favorite fictional romances fall under? Also, in general, what are your thoughts about romance in books?

I don't have a favorite, I like them all! For my own life I would prefer to have number #1 or 2 though . I like romance in books, but only when it's not cheesy or innapropriate.

sandy: She was Bet (Nancy's best friend) and she also played Charlotte (Noah Claypole's girlfriend ).

Recently, I read some the Father Brown Mysteries by G.K. Chesterton. The stories, in Chesterton fashion, are jammed packed with matter to the point where you have to double check whether the stories are ONLY 25 pages long. Father Brown is quite an interesting character.

Booky: the whole "lady weaving in a tower" thing was a reference to The Lady of Shallot. It's not very explicit, but it is there, and McKillip has attested to it. Basically, she took that idea and fashioned her own story around it - and a very original story it was!

A satire on rural Hardy-esque novels? That sounds like my kind of thing. Is it mostly a comedy?

Oh, yes. It pits the well-bred and practical heroine Flora Poste (who wants to write a novel "as good as Persuasion" after she's "lived" a while) against her rustic relatives, the Starkadders: Couisin Judith, who accepts "Robert Poste's childe" onto Cold Comfort Farm merely to redress a wrong done to her father years before; Amos, who preaches fire and brimstone to a "quiverin'" congregation, warning them that "There'll be no butter in hell!" ( ); their children, Reuben and Seth, the first a hard-working man who really cares about the farm, the latter a notorious womanizer; their daughter, who roams the moors a la Cathy in Wuthering Heights; and Great Aunt Ada Doom, who "saw something nasty in the woodshed" and now uses it as her claim for supremacy. Some people find the end results rather banal (wisewoman dislikes this book) but I thought it was hilarious. For the purposes of my Austen class, I chose to read it in light of Charlotte Bronte's famous comments about Austen and the lack of "passion" in her works, seeing the conflict between Flora and the Starkadders as a conflict between Austenesque and Bronteesque ideals. It's a very "literary" novel ... there's one character in there who's a clear spoof on D. H. Lawrence.

I've always felt that I would get on very well with Fanny. This time, however, I find her a little bit annoying.

There's a lot of scholarly debate surrounding Fanny, as I discovered when I researched MP and Persuasion this semester. Are we supposed to see her as the morally normative figure of the novel, or is she flawed, like most of the characters? Responses are varied and sometimes surprising; even C. S. Lewis found her "insipid." I think she's upright but somewhat flawed (especially in terms of social skills), but that she grows immeasurably as the novel goes on.

after hearing all of the praise of The Bell at Sealey Head, I've a mind to read it. Is it a good McKillip to start with?

Yes, we seem to have a regular Sealey Head conspiracy going on here. I think it would be a good first choice, yes ... everyone here who started with it seems to have enjoyed it, which is unusual for one's first McKillip, and it's definitely one of her more accessible works. So yes, I'd recommend it! Read it, and then Riddle-Master. (Booky, is it possible that you still have yet to read R-M? Shame, shame!)

Glad you enjoyed The Penderwicks! It's a darling story.

Whoa ... another W&P reading group? One of these days I'll join in. But I have so many things to read this year, and for 2010 Dostoyevsky's going to take precedence over Tolstoy.

BTW, Glenstorm, I've been thinking ... and I'd really suggest reading Silas Marner before Daniel Deronda. It's short, it would get you used to Eliot's style before diving into the lengthy DD, and in my opinion, it's just better. But have it as you will.

Lady Haleth, those Damar books were some of my favorites growing up! A reread is more than overdue. Don't you find some of the subject matter in the second half of Hero a little disturbing, though? I only realized what was going on there years after I read it.

Ah, Mel, I thought you would enjoy my Very Snarky Review. The Random Capitalization gave a standout performance, didn't it?

That's enough for now. All I have to report is that I had the good luck to come across a bunch of Wodehouse volumes at a library booksale the other day (finally!) and that I stayed up half the night reading Eliot's Scenes of Clerical Life.

I'm going to read Wuthering Heights! Is it nice? Well I do hope it is. I just love romantic books!

It is not nice. But that does not mean you will not like it. Many people love Wuthering Heights, but "nice" is not a word I've ever heard used to describe it. The characters are incredibly selfish, and they are either cruel or pathetic. Everyone hates everyone except when they are in passionate love relationships. The beauty of the book is it's landscape, Charlotte's writing, and the fact that anyone finds redemption in the midst of such hate.

Mel: Thank you for your feedback on Manalive. I know people love it so I have to assume that it goes beyond the first little scene of seeming pointlessness. Maybe I just didn't get the joke or moral or whatever was going on.

Ly: Cold Comfort Farm sounds delightful. I'll definitely put it on my list for this summer. *Eyes rapidly growing list* And thank you for the feedback on McKillip.

About Fanny, I think my mistake in my approach toward Fanny is that I have thought of her as the "ideal." I guess I never considered that she might be intended to be flawed. It's true, she grows in strength of opinion and confidence throughout the novel. Austen seems to glorify it. At points, she is called just barely civil, which is something of a flaw. No one pays any attention to her, which is partly their arrogance, but also probably because Fanny is often selfish in not forging relationships with others unless they come to her level. Edmund is honored for his kindness. Fanny is kind, but only to those who ask for it. She can also be judgmental. Thank you for your feedback. It's easier to like her knowing that her character is indeed flawed. She is not just the helpless innocent flawless victim. I am getting further in the novel and enjoying her more and more. I was intrigued by the passage in which

Frank: I think my favorite romance is Jane Eyre and that is definitely an 11. But there are a lot of wonderful non-cliche twists and complications along the way.

BTW, Glenstorm, I've been thinking ... and I'd really suggest reading Silas Marner before Daniel Deronda. It's short, it would get you used to Eliot's style before diving into the lengthy DD, and in my opinion, it's just better. But have it as you will.

Ok I'll read that first then. I haven't really asked anyone's advice on it so I just decided to read DD first b/c I wanted to see the movie (with Romola ). But I'll read SM before it I guess .

Finished Sealey Head earlier today and I TOTALLY loved it . I'll write more about it later, but it was one of my fave books .

Booky, is it possible that you still have yet to read R-M? Shame, shame!

*looks shifty*

Keep moving, folks. Nothing to see here.

@Kate really? Well. Some said it was boring, but, oh well. I might as well check to see if I might like it.

It is not nice. But that does not mean you will not like it. Many people love Wuthering Heights, but "nice" is not a word I've ever heard used to describe it. The characters are incredibly selfish, and they are either cruel or pathetic. Everyone hates everyone except when they are in passionate love relationships. The beauty of the book is it's landscape, Charlotte's writing, and the fact that anyone finds redemption in the midst of such hate.

I'm going to break my own rule and talk very briefly about WH and potentially run the risk of bringing wisewoman's wrath on my head . Kate, I largely agree with your sentiment as expressed above.

If you haven't read Wuthering Heights before there's some things you need to know.

1. This book is not a romance. It is far, far, far from being a romance. The only time romance pops up is towards then end, but you have to slog through a lot of hate, loathing, and bitterness to get there.

2. The book is filled with some truly detestable characters. I've come across some really mean people in my life but nothing comes close to the malcontents in this tome.

3. The characters have serious mental issues, and Heathcliff is a walking billboard for Prozac.

4. The characters also have obsession issues. Always bear in mind love doesn't work like what these wackos in the book are portraying it as. It borders on emo...

I know there's some folks who enjoy WH. I genuinely don't understand why, but I accept that and my hat's off to em' . I couldn't relate to any of the characters...I don't enjoy the characters in the book, and the payoff felt like "too little, too late" for my tastes. I felt like a sanitation worker who was forced to travel through 25 miles of filthy, vermin-filled sewer tunnels and was rewarded with 2 minutes of sunlight and fresh air at the end. That's not an equitable return for me from any book. Go into it with the understanding that it's not at all a "nice" or "fun" book, that you'll see the human condition in its worst form, and please don't call it a "romance". Please.

haha, okay. My friend said it was a romance genre so, I didn't know much of it yet. But I still am going to read WH even if it's boring. Just to see how it goes.

I've finished reading Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. Weirdest book I've ever read. It was a difficult read but oddly compelling. It wasn't a fun read but in small doses it was interesting. If you think the Alice books gave you a headache, you may want to pass on this one.
Now onto something a little lighter - Stephen King's 1,300 page magnum opus: The Stand. Love that book!

Now onto something a little lighter - Stephen King's 1,300 page magnum opus: The Stand. Love that book!

That is an excellent book, although not for the squeamish. His Dark Tower books (at least the first 4) are probably slightly better though. Interestingly enough the DT books go through a few different "realities" and in one of them the characters are briefly in the universe that The Stand takes place in.

Part of my summer reading plan involves a re-read of The Stand, I haven't read it for about 4 years and a recent viewing of the so-bad-it's-good TV adaption has inspired me

Most of King's books cross over with the DT series, one of my favorite parts of his books are picking up on all these little cross references (well, in the case of Flagg, not so small ).

*emerges from a long absence*

Hi everyone!! I honestly can't remember the last time I posted in here. In my defense, I was crazily busy (I have a low level of busy tolerance, okay? I'm going to die next year.) this last school year, and didn't read much of anything, so dropped out of discussion. I've tried to keep up, but my email notifications keep getting off and I miss loads of pages. I am not nearly as dedicated as lysander was to do a catch-up post (as fun as it was to read), so skipping that... y'all get to hear about me!

Rundown of what I've read since the school year ended:

Wildwood Dancing, by Juliet Marillier. Think The Princess & The Frog merged with The Twelve Five Dancing Princesses. I very much enjoyed this one. It came highly recommended by a friend who, in general, has reading tastes that very much line up with my own. The vampire Night People inclusion was a little bit of a letdown, but I don't know if it was published before or after Twilight, so I suppose I can't fault it too much. The Night People were not portrayed as these fantastic paragons of What Your Life Should Be, but as bad, but somewhat compelling/tempting people. The sister

Spoiler

almost wasting away because she loves the one non-vampire dude was disappointing. Reading it, I kept thinking, "Come on, girl! You're should be stronger/smarter/better than that!" And then at the end she got to go live with her fairytale non-prince with a traumatic past, yay!

Bleak House by Charles Dickens. I've meant to read this since last summer, but never got around to it. It took me a week with a nice long car ride in it, and by the time I finished it, I had gotten thoroughly into Dickens' writing. It had a lot of bleak ( ) events in it, and I predicted in a few instances who was going to die, but on the whole, I loved everything about it. Now, I need to find a good miniseries/movie/adaptation.

Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell. I settled for this instead of North & South because my library is being ridiculous and doesn't have N&S in its system. I liked it? I didn't think it was bad, but I didn't think it was great either. It may have been the short story style. I did love the characters, and was alarmed after the first few chapters when it seemed like a character was dying every chapter. At that rate, there would be no main characters left at the end of the book.

The Lost Conspiracy, by Frances Hardinge. Can I just say how much I love Hardinge's books? I love Fly By Night (the capitalizations, the names, the characters, the setting, the focus on words) and I thought that Well Witched was good... if not exactly to my taste. (I can be startled easily, but I can recover from that in books. In Well Witched, she just built up this sense of horrific dread because everything that could go wrong definitely did and in multiple ways and I kept checking to see whether it was, in fact, a children's book. Totally stole the title of "Most Disturbing Children's Book" from QoA (if QoA is really a children's book, TT could be but the rest of the series has definitely branched away from that). I still think it was well written, but I don't think I'll ever reread it.) That being said about her former books, TLC was quite good! Hathin reminded me of Mosca, but since I loved Mosca, I thought that was okay. I so love Hardinge's humor.
[quote="Frances Hardinge in The Lost Conspiracy":3nx2vckq]"I can... I can marry my housekeeper! Do I have a housekeeper? I never had time to notice! But now I can get a housekeeper! And marry her!"

He struggled to his feet and staggered away wild-eyed, presumably in search of a housekeeper.

And now I'm trying to read Little Dorrit, but as much as I like it (Oh, the chapter on the Circumlocution Office! ), I'm finding it hard to keep reading it. It could be that I recently read a Dickens novel and the characters are muddling together. It could be that I started it, put it down to graduate, get oriented, and have an open house and am having a hard time picking it back up. Probably something like that.

Oh, and I almost forgot. I also read The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan. I read it solely because I love her blog (link can be found at the bottom of my post) and sense of humor. I really liked it, or parts of it, for the most part. I had accidentally spoiled it for myself (I didn't mean to! Honest. I just read a sentence in a comment, and once I did there was no erasing it. ) so that may have partially tampered with my enjoyment of it. I'd read the second one to get another fix of her writing style, dialogue, and characterization, but I don't think that my worldview and hers completely line up everywhere and thus I don't think her books will be favorites.

And there is my completely self-centered post about what I've been reading! And just to prove I have been reading along, I'm completely envious of Fanny and GtG's P&P reread, thinking about putting The Bell at Sealey Head on my list, and trying to come up with a third thing to mention but failing. Oh, I've read Ever. It was very weird. I'm going to have to agree with whoever (lys?) said that none of Gail Carson Levine's later writing has lived up to Ella Enchanted. However, I thought Fairest was decent, if by no means spectacular.

You know, as I reread this post, I think that I trail off and never really wrap up my thoughts about the books I've read themselves. And I'm really not sure how to, so I think I'll leave it like that and if anyone desperately wants me to expand on a particular book, I'll do that then.

*I stumbled across this blog entry by Sarah Rees Brennan about different types of heroes in books. It not only made me laugh but has forever redefined how I classify certain characters.

Do you have any reccomendations?

Well, my favorite McKillip (maybe tied with Bell) is In the Forests of Serre. It's rather like a Grimm's fairytale, only darker and dreamier. And there's a firebird, and a brave, compassionate princess, and a heart-stealing witch, not to mention some of the most gorgeous descriptions I've found in her work.
Also, although *shhh* I've never read it, her Riddlemaster trilogy is reputedly excellent, and I think others here could confirm that for you pretty enthusiastically.

Why don't we three do a War and Peace read through this summer? I'm game for reading it again, and perhaps if there's two or three of us doing it everyone will have a more pleasant experience.

I most definitely would be up for that! What fun! Since you've already read it, can I ask what translation you used (and did you like it)?

@ Bella:

Spoiler

I'd forgotten about the striking Mr. Bhaer episode, but you're right, that's not very consistent with Nat's later behavior. This is one of my biggest problems with Jo's Boys; there's so much character development that gets apparently flung out the window.
"Coquettish" doesn't create a very flattering picture (even of a hat. ) It reminds me of the part in Little Women about Amy's popularity with Laurie's college friends. There she seems to view flirting as perfectly acceptable, provided it's done gracefully.

So if you had to pick a favorite of Alcott's works, what would you choose?

Seeing you and a few others mention your immense favour at Patricia McKillip's works, which would you reccomend for someone who's never read anything by her?

I'd recommend The Bell at Sealey Head. It's definitely the most straightforward and--human, perhaps?--of her novels I've read. So it's a bit of an easier read while you're adjusting to her style. Besides, it's just a delightful, rather Austenesque story, with lovely quotes about books and writing, and lots of mouthwatering descriptions of meals.

Apologies to Levin for the levity.

Levin needs more levity in his life.

Yes, you really should read 100 Cupboards. (Because then you can read Dandelion Fire! )

So Dandelion Fire is better, then? And I'm trying! *mutters something about Other People at the library who have the nerve to check out books*

Interesting list, stardf29! Hmm, a couple of my favorite romances would be Emma-Mr.Knightley, which is a classic 1, and Kate-Christopher from The Perilous Gard, which is a blend of 5 and 12, I suppose?

Finished Sealey Head earlier today and I TOTALLY loved it . I'll write more about it later, but it was one of my fave books .

* at the different types of heroes* Aha! I knew Edward Cullen was a muffin!

My little brother and I started on Mr. Popper's Penguins a few days ago. We're reading it aloud, complete with different "voices", and he's loving it. It was one of my favorites when I was little, but I don't remember it being such a witty, hilarious story! We were both laughing out loud through the escapades of the penguin act, with the staged boxing matches and the frightening of certain unfortunate tightrope walkers.

And last night, my mom brought home Hudson Taylor's autobiography for me. It's a little book (I'm nearly done, after about a two hours' read) and very simply written, but it is a far more powerful account than many other and longer biographies. What an incredible, abandoned life he lived; more adventure in a week than many people have in a lifetime.