The Places You Will Go

Do Not Adjust your Screen

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A Sendak Feast

I've been gorging on Maurice Sendak ... never a bad thing.

Got an audiobook of a collection of his stories read by Tammy Grimes, an American stage actress and have been listening to it (repeatedly) in the car. I love the way Grimes reads the stories - she's made Sendak even better and he was already the best!

And then my friend, Hsian, bought me a collection of animated film adaptations of Sendak's books and it's on right now as I type this.

In a Nutshell

In Guardian Unlimited today, a report on how books are being condensed into text messages "to help students choose classics and master their revision".

Read If You Don't Want to Know How Bleak House Ends, Look Away Now.

The article quotes a few examples and reading them, I realise how I am so not a text message pro.

For example, at first glance, doesn't this look like utter gibberish?

"MembaDatAlDaPplnDaWrldHvntHdDaVantgsUvAd"

No? Well, to me it did. However, I did manage to decipher it when I looked harder.

Anyway, I'm sure students will find this service useful, but my worry is how it will just make the most wonderful books sound completely lame.

Here are condensed versions of some of my favourite books:

"Married woman falls in love with hot bod who dumps her whereupon she jumps under a train."

"Girl turns down marriage proposal but, after a few years, meets him again and grabs second chance at happiness."

"Two egg heads try to figure out the connection between two Victorian poets, decide that they were probably in love and fall in love themselves."

"Woman meets a South American terrorist, they marry and then wander aimlessly around Europe."

"Two Oxford undergrads become friends and get drunk. A lot. They drift apart. One falls in love with the other's sister, the relationship doesn't work out but he finds God."

"Twins start boarding school. Overshadowed by big sisters. Get into trouble, but still manage to shine."

Hmm ... imagine how much space we'd save if books were really that short! And imagine how unenthusiastic many of us would be about books too!

Austen on Film

Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion will be dramatised by British TV station ITV1. This isn't the first time films/TV series based on the three books have been made. I've seen my share of really dismal adaptations, including a television version of Mansfield Park in which Fanny Price seemed decidedly "backward" and a film version where she was this bright, lively, witty thing!

Northanger Abbey, which is the Austen novel that makes me laugh the most will be adapted by Andrew Davies who was responsible for that brilliant TV version of George Eliot's Middlemarch - bodes well for NA.

Anyway, read the Guardian article about the films here. I hope we get to see them, sooner or later, on telly or DVD.

Which Fanny is the "real" Fanny?

a) Beautiful, vivacious, headstrong?

b) Slow, dull, spineless?

A Week of Good Reads

I've just finished reading two very enjoyable books:

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean and Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin (they're going to be reviewed for Star Mag).

They were so good I gobbled them up very fast and had no time to even enter them in my Current Reads list.

Ditto for Skylark and Cassie Binegar by Patricia MacLachlan. MacLachlan is the author of Sarah, Plain and Tall and Baby. Skylark is the sequel to Sarah and as good. There are two more books in this series; Caleb's Story and More Perfect Than the Moon, which I'm going to rush out and buy very, very soon.

MacLachlan is right up there (along with Laura Ingalls Wilder and Elizabeth Enright) on my list of favourite children's writers.

It's been a good week for good books.

The others, still on my Current Reads list, are taking longer as they are a lot fatter. Also, I am reading Here Be Monsters to Elesh so that's going very, very slowly as I get tired and can't manage more than  chapter a night.

As for Botchan, I haven't had a nice, just-me-and-my-book breakfast  for the longest time.

I'm looking forward to December. I'll be on leave and intend to read a great deal. Luckily my friend, Helen, who's visiting from Edinburgh, is also a great reader so we shall keep each other company doing what some say is an anti-social activity. 

Reading Aloud

If you read today's Tots to Teens (in Star Mag) and you want suggestions for books to read to older kids (six to 60+), here are some that I used to love read to me (and still do!).

The Moomin books by Tove Jansson

The Uncle books by J. P. Martin

Tales from the End Cottage by Eileen Bell

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

The Witches by Roald Dahl

Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl

The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde

The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde

Alice in Wonderland  and Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Here Be Monsters by Alan Snow

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Any of Enid Blyton's adventure and mystery books

In next Sunday's Tots to Teens I will be highlighting some audio books for children and teens. I will also be writing about audio books in next Sunday's Reads pages.

Mini Review: High in the Clouds

I said I would write more about Paul McCartney's High in the Clouds once I'd actually read it for myself.

So .... I've read it. Some of it anyway. And ... well, let's just say Elesh, my eight-year-old, likes it. I read about 15 pages and lost interest, but he got to page 26 and then asked for a bookmark. He intends to continue at a later date. Once he's finished playing his Star Wars: Jedi Academy PC game!

Write Away, Right Away, Or Not ... As the Case May Be

NaNoWriMo has begun, but has the regretting?

Hell, no!

I mean, it seems to me that there's really no reason for regrets.

One can but try. There's no such thing as failure and it's all supposed to be about having a good time and saying, "Well, at least I gave it a whirl!"