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Glad to hear you're a Gorey fan as well. Have you read Ascending Peculiarities (a collection of his interviews)? What he had to say was as intriguing as his illustrations. I was delighted to read he enjoyed watching Buffy and Dallas!  Just goes to show you there's no point in being a snob about a particular medium and that avoiding popular culture doesn't necessarily make you a better artist or person.
No, I haven't read Ascending Peculiarities - I just checked and my library doesn't have it. I do, however, have a bookstore gift card from Christmas burning a hole in my pocket, so, hmmm, that will have to go on the list.
And, hey, Dallas may be popular culture, but Buffy is art - and Joss Whedon is a genius!
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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]
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More is best here!!!
I'm learning SO MUCH about books here just by reading these posts. Some of this stuff is familair to me as an English major...and as an annoyingly read-at-the-table reader here....however I am a slow reader and don't read as much quantity as I'd prefer. So now I get to see what's out there that I'd like to read (and get to be picky about it since I don't get to read too fast) with some idea of what I'm getting into thanks to you and all the folks in this thread! I love the way you summarize the books in a couple of sentences or more letting me get just enough osf a taste without giving anything anyway   
I meant what I said Sand. You're a keeper and I'm thankful to have you on these boards *hugs*
How are you doing these days btw?
Thanks again for keeping my mind on literature and off of the fear of my impending surgery on Thur...I owe ya tons *hugs*
With love to my friend, 
Ruchie
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Formerly known as Ruchie
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P.S.
#241208 - 01/24/06 01:07 PM
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They didn't have Little Women at the library. I was so sad! It truly is a classic to me. :-)
The Secret Garden! *loads of smiles* What a great book/movie/Broadway show!
Agathat Christy! I'd forgotten...we read her in college. Can we say WOWOWOW! I can't recall the name of what we read but I was definately blown away!
Thanks again Sand for all your picks :-)
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Formerly known as Ruchie
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Ruchie, have you read any Marion Zimmer Bradley? You will love her work. Check out "The Mists of Avalon" or "The Firebrand." Also, "The Lefthand of Darkness" by Ursula le Guin is phenomenal!
Have you read "The Dragon Riders of Pern" by Anne McCaffrey, yet? Another outstanding SF series. Also, check out "Blood Music" by Greg Bear.
Have you read "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest?" It's a great book.
Have fun reading.
Kate.
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thanks for asking. My bad day was just a bad day, thank goodness, not a bad week.
I can't believe your library didn't have Little Women. That should be illegal. Are girls today going to grow up without knowing who Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are? Without knowing Marmee? That's not right!
Quantity isn't the only way to go. I read incredibly fast - which I enjoy - but I know I don't get as much out of my books as someone like my husband who reads more slowly and really thinks about what he's reading. I read an article (maybe Reader's Digest) years and years ago about a man who was a prisoner of war in World War II. He had one book and one book only and he talked about how he read it as slowly as he could to make it last. He said he got a whole new perspective on the book when he read it a little bit at a time and then thought about what he had read before reading more.
I'm glad to be on the Boards and glad you're around, too.
All the best on Thursday, Ruchie. I'll be thinking of you.
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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]
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But, I will have to say, I find a lot of them to be VERY creepy. So, Ruchie, if you're a little put-off by that, you might want to just start out with one book to see if you like it. I was racking my brain trying to think of ones that weren't quite as creepy, but off the top of my head I'm not too sure.
I love Edward Gorey's illustrations! We are remodeling our house and sometimes I think that I should skip the fuss and muss of paint and just cover the walls in awesome book illustrations. I have a thing for book covers. I think my favorites are the older Prydain Chronicles covers -- the ones that were white at the top and bottom and had a very medieval illustration wrapped round the rest. I only have one of them, alas. B&N used to have them in print ages ago but I haven't checked in years.
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jen
"It's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle -- to get one's head cut off." -- LC
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I love that website! I must've spent two straight weekends reading through all of the stumpers. God, I'm pathetic.
If that book wasn't the one, you have quite a bit of information about the book, and I bet you could get it answered if you decided to ask a question. Let me know!
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jen
"It's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle -- to get one's head cut off." -- LC
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Hey, I wouldn't recommend reading Evanovich if you don't like racy books -- hers have sex, violence, and incredibly vulgar language. On the plus side, they ARE funny. They really start to spiral downhill as the series goes on, though. The last 4 or so have been pretty bad, though still funny in spots. And you can tell that she reads WAY too much Junie B. Jones.
Elizabeth Peters is awesome! I love her books. My favorite series is Vicky Bliss, though Jacqueline Kirby is a close second (I totally agree about wanting to be her when I grow up). If you've ever been addicted to romance novels, "Die For Love" is a must-read. My favorite book period by her is probably "The Camelot Caper". It's an earlier one (you can tell because the heroine puts on driving gloves) -- it's pretty innocuous, very fun, cute romance. Second-favorite is "Silhouette in Scarlet" (which is one of the Vicky Bliss mysteries). There is one bit in there that cracks me up every time, where one of the villainous thugs becomes shocked when he realizes that the heroine is cheating at Scrabble.
Elizabeth Peters also writes under Barbara Michaels. I like these books as well -- they are Gothics, though, not typical mysteries the way the EP books are. The best Barbara Michaels stuff was written in the 80s and 90s. In the last several years she's pretty much only written Amelia Peabody mysteries. I haven't kept up on them, I think the series kinda went downhill beginning when Nefret entered the picture.
What's funny is that I LOVE Charlotte Macleod, but I never read the Peter Shandy series because I thought they were boring. I did read (and love) the Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn mysteries. I've started buying the Peter Shandy books when I see them and plan on giving them another go.
I also love "Daughter of Time", but anything Josephine Tey writes tends to be good. I also really like "Brat Farrar".
Also concur about Mary Stewart -- she is great, though I haven't read the Merlin trilogy yet because I only have two of the books. Her standalone Gothics/mysteries are good.
Someone recommended "Nun in a Closet" to me, but I still haven't found a copy. (I VERY rarely buy new books, by the way, so I am generally limited to what I can find in used bookstores, thrift shops, and library book sales.)
When I'm in my mystery phase (and I haven't been for ages), I always liked Nancy Pickard, K.K. Beck, Margaret Maron, M.C. Beaton (who wrote a zillion romances under the names Marion Chesney, Helen Crampton, Ann Fairfax, and Jennie Tremaine -- I own nearly all of them and I love every single silly formulaic one of them) ("Molly" by Jennie Tremaine is like one of my favorite books ever), Dorothy Sayers, Ellis Peters, Karen Kijewski, Ruth Rendell, Sharyn McCrumb (Elizabeth MacPherson mysteries), Dianne Day, Dorothy Cannell, and Mollie Hardwick (Doran Fairweather books). Also love Rumpole but forget now who writes them. John Mortimer? Oh, and G.K. Chesterton's stuff is GREAT.
My FAVORITE SERIES EVER is a sf series by Lois McMaster Bujold about Miles Vorkosigan. I LOVE HIM. I would so marry him. If he were real. I'm not sure you'd like them, Ruchie -- they are pretty raw. Not sexually (there's some sex, but not much), but lots of violence, mind stuff, and one book (Mirror Dance) has a LOT of heavy-duty sick torture stuff.
Sand -- that's true about series getting darker. I think it's because the more you write, the more you get a sort of uneasy feeling that you ought to be tackling Serious Dramatic Happenings, instead of just witty musings on, um, like, the thread count of towels or whatever.
Wow, this thread is totally long. Maybe it needs a fresh start or something. Or maybe we all need to keep quiet about books. I think I am using too many capital letters.
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jen
"It's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle -- to get one's head cut off." -- LC
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That's great of you. For several years I ran the children's department at Barnes and Noble and grew to love so many of the books there. I have a few favorites that I treasure above all others. The Wind in the Willows, Where the Red Fern Grows, and The View from Saturday. I've read hundreds of children's books (I had to know what books were about to help customers find them without titles or authors) and these three are, in my opinion, the best I ever read. Of course there are so many wonderful books to choose from but I highly recommend these.
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If you're not dead, you've still got time.
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But, I will have to say, I find a lot of them to be VERY creepy. So, Ruchie, if you're a little put-off by that, you might want to just start out with one book to see if you like it. I was racking my brain trying to think of ones that weren't quite as creepy, but off the top of my head I'm not too sure. I can't think of any that aren't creepy, either...
I love Edward Gorey's illustrations! We are remodeling our house and sometimes I think that I should skip the fuss and muss of paint and just cover the walls in awesome book illustrations. This is an excellent idea! Someday when I have a house, I'll have to do this to one of the rooms.
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