@Col-Klink, thanks for the info on the Les Miserables translations and the link the Dombey and Son discussion! I do like the play on words Donougher uses, but agree that that Wilbourn section you quoted has personality.

I have not read The Fall of Arthur, @Narnian78, but I have read some of Tolkien's other poetry, fragments, and translations. I particularly enjoyed his composition of The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrun.

I'm back into trying to tackle some of my to-read list for the year and have started a reread of Foundling by D.M. Cornish. I remember it being a bit bewildering the first time through, and I'm curious to see if I follow it better now that I have a view of the series overall.

Posted by: @aileth
I've read (and proofread) a bunch of his books.  There were a couple of spots in TBF where I felt he strayed from the true account of the Gospels in order to pursue creative licence, and it bothered me a bit. 

I may modify it slightly, but for now here's my review of 1959's "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George.

My Side of the Mountain review

It reads a big differently as an adult. That's not necessarily bad, though. The narrative is both complex enough and spare enough to make room for several interpretations.

@the-old-maid I read that in my earlier teens. I was older than the boy, but I was not interested in imitating him. I knew it was a novel, yet I kept reading to find out what happened next and in the end. I went eagerly to see the film, but it was disappointing; it just didn't depict the hopeful and surviving boy of the book.

@coracle I never saw the film. I did read a transcript a few days ago. Algae, algae, algae, algae, algae. It's not in the book.

As long as I'm at it, a book review for The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Posted by: @valiantarcher

@SnowAngel, it's good to hear you're enjoying the Wimsey series! Sounds like you're making swift progress, too.

I am having great fun reading through the series. I haven't made much progress on Strong Poison since I started it last week, however it is an intriguing plot thus far. 

I bought two more books last week, I was at a thrift shop and found a really nice hardcover two in one by Janette Oke and Wolfsbane by Ronie Kendig. I haven't enjoyed Ronie Kendig's recent releases, but I liked this one when I read it a few years and the price was right - less than fifty cents.  

SnowAngel

After weeks of renewing library books without cracking them open, i've finally found a way to ensure i get some reading time in! 

I've read four more Ngaio Marsh mysteries. Let's see if i can remember them all -- Vintage Murder, Artists in Crime, Death in a White Tie, and Overture to Death. Yep, that's four for four. Overall i liked them better than her first four, but the improvement isn't great: instead of "yuck, yuck, meh, and okay", it's "okay, almost okay, meh, decent".

I think i've figured out some of what doesn't work for me. For one, her inspector character Roderick Alleyn is incredibly boring. When he's on the job, there's nothing particularly unique or interesting about his detecting style, and i can't imagine any hobbies or amusements he enjoys outside of work. He's got no particular interests, no definitive character traits, nothing. This is even more stark when he's compared to his "sidekick" Inspector Fox, and his Watson analogue Nigel Bathgate -- and Nigel's completely useless in every story he's in, which makes Alleyn's blandness even worse. It also undercuts the romantic relationship Marsh is trying to develop with Alleyn and

I could critique more of her writing, but i will say the eighth book, Overture to Death, marked an improvement: the crime was actually depicted, so we didn't need to spend one third of the book listening to the suspects' version of events, and the various people involved were actually interesting and had distinct personalities. It's the first Marsh mystery i can accurately say i liked! I've been reading her books mostly because Generic Golden Age British Mysteries scratch some mysterious itch in my brain, but i'm hopeful that, whether Marsh is improving or i'm just getting used to her, the trend continues.

@arin are you reading in the order she wrote/published? When she began, murder mysteries weren't full of character. Detectives were bland and slightly mysterious, and the readers were trying to guess 'whodunit'. 

Ngaio Marsh began writing as a diversion while in London in a patch of bad weather. She bought some  exercise books (aka notebooks) and pencils, and started from the popular Murder game of the time.

Ngaio was university trained as an artist. She also spent some time as an actor, and loved theatre. She grew up in New Zealand and spent much of adult life there.

So the things I notice are her descriptions of people and places, and the number of stories set in English theatres and various places in NZ.  Her social and racial attitudes are sadly true to her social class. Some are cringy.

I'll be interested to see if you notice development or improvement as you go through them. 

In NZ she is celebrated for directing and rekindling the love of theatre here, especially Shakespeare. (For this she was made a Dame, equivalentof Sir). She supported this work by writing the books!

My favourites are the theatre-based murders.

Posted by: @coracle

@arin are you reading in the order she wrote/published? When she began, murder mysteries weren't full of character. Detectives were bland and slightly mysterious, and the readers were trying to guess 'whodunit'. 

Yep, in publishing order. (Is there another order to read them in? I can't imagine looking at a series and going, "I'll just pick at random.")

If mystery detectives were commonly bland and mysterious, perhaps that contributed to the success or enduring popularity of Sayers' Lord Peter and Christie's Marple and Poirot. As for guessing "whodunit", maybe i'd be able to figure it out if i read her crime scene descriptions and interrogations and took notes, but that's a level of investment i'm trying to avoid when i'm reading Generic British Murder Mysteries.

Perhaps Marsh's background in theater makes a difference for people with experience in that area -- if i hadn't already known she used to be an actress, i don't think i would have guessed it just from reading her books. Of the two theater-heavy stories, Vintage Murder is one of the "better-ish" ones, but Enter a Murderer is one of the worst.

@arin I think her theatre background gave her knowledge of the feeling of backstage and the types of people there in that period. 

Continuing a miniseries on runaway stories.

Review for SLAKE'S LIMBO by Felice Holman here

and Review: made for TV movie RUNAWAY, based on the book here

Ah, the difference between a screen interpretation and the actual source/book.

It's been forever since I posted in this thread. I just wanted to say that after reading The Wizard of Oz to my kids, they just LOVED it and have not allowed me to stop, so we're STILL trekking through the entire series. Just finished up The Scarecrow of Oz (book 9) and I have to say I'm sick of Oz LOLOLOL. There are two problems with reading all of the books back to back. One, Mr. Baum uses the same storylines over and over. Two, he never went back and reread his own books so there are massive inconsistencies within the storyline. Apparently his editor didn't pay close attention to his work either. But my kids love them, so there's that.  

The last book we read for school this year was Across Five Aprils. It's an autobiography written by the granddaughter of a man who was a child during the Civil War. It was REALLY good. My only complaint was that I had a lot of questions of what happened to the family after the book ended, but I can find no record anywhere of any information like that. Ah well. 

@fantasia 

The Oz books are very entertaining, wholesome reading.  I don’t know if they would be considered great, but they are very good for children. Even if they don’t have the depth of the Narnia books they are good storytelling.  I especially like the editions that have five novels in one hardcover volume.  They have the original illustrations in black and white, but they are a real bargain with five stories in one book.  The print is easy to read, too.  These books may be out of print now, but if you can find them they are well worth getting. 🙂

@narnian78 I have the full set of 14 in hardback, also with original art, so I'm good there. 🙂

I finished Strong Poison and Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers. I'm trying to pick a favorite in the series thus far, but I've enjoyed the series as whole so much it's hard to decide. Plus I've only read two so far with Harriet Vane in them and she's not really in Strong Poison all that much, so it's only in Have His Carcase that I've really gotten a chance to read much Wimsey/Vane dialog which is great fun to read.  

Then I read The Case of the Howling Dog by Erle Stanley Gardner. It's the second Perry Mason book I have read, I previously read The Case of the Velvet Claws last year. The Case of the Howling Dog has such a simple mystery plot after reading Have His Carcase. Will definitely read more Perry Mason books when I can find them.

Now I'm reading The Laird's Inheritance by George MacDonald. It's one of my favorite George MacDonald books and it's been at least 10 years since I last read it, I'm super curious to see if it is as good as I remember it being.  

SnowAngel