OT Childhood books you still own and read.

Following a comment by Simian that it had been over 28 years since he
read the hobbit I was thinking that it must be about the same and
thinking about my early reading. I vaguely remember the Janet and John
books. I know by the time we were living in Oxford (so I was 6/7) I'd
got to the end of the Primary school reading scheme. Then I started to
eat up the real books.

Lots of the worthy stuff Harriet Beecher Stowe, CS Lewis, George
MacDonald.

Classics like Treasure Island, Huckleberry Finn, White Fang.

I was going to say I've kept none of the above but I have a folio
edition of the Narnia books somewhere and a slip case of George
MacDonald. I don't read them though.

What I have kept and go back to;

A wrinkle in Time, probably the first sci-fi I read.

The entire Anne of Green Gables series. I still sob at Anne's House of
Dreams.

Gerald Durrell.

Watership Down.

Now I'm getting the urge to step away from the computer and read so
I'll leave UKRM to add to the list. They are the same as a plate of
comfort food.

 

[snip]

Strangely, although I like keeping books, subject to having suitable
space, I very rarely go back and read them. Fiction, anyway.

 

<AOL> on both counts. Did you she she (the author) died just recently?

I won my copy as a school prize in 1966.

I read and re-read Gerald Durrell, too.

George MacDonald means nothing to me. I thought you meant George
MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman books. I first read Flashman
when I was about 11 or 12, I suppose, and since then have religiously
bought every Flashman book as it came out. Plus the MacAuslan books, and
some of his other stuff.

He was on Desert Island Discs a few years ago. Wonderful. The Doctor
says her history teacher at school used to encourage her pupils to read
the Flashman books, because they were *so* historically accurate.

 

I did and was surprised as I thought she was dead years ago.

Oh sub thread, books won as school prizes. City of London Freeman's
School General Knowledge prize in 1980/1, the Octopus big book of
nature. I've kept it for the book plate. I still love the fact the
tiny 3rd year girl that I was beat the entire lower school.

I've got the Buster Taylor vet books as well, though I haven't read
those for knocking on a decade, must remedy that. I remember being sad
and annoyed at the stupidity of peoplewho abandoned or killed
dacshunds in the second world war

Inspiration for Lewis, d'Engle, Auden, Chesterton, Carroll amongst
others. Worth a read of the adult stuff, the children's stories have
since been done better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_MacDonald

Read some of the Flashman, I think they were too 'real' iyswim for me
then.

Heh.

 

Shardik - by the guy that wrote Watership down (but more
fantasy-based and a lot more bloody).

Other than that I don't really re-read stuff I read as a youngster.
Most of it was tripe (EE Doc Smith springs to mind!).

Phil

 

I got rid of all my fiction 10 years ago when I moved to London.
Something like a thousand paperbacks.

 

On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:26:27 -0000, "Nige"

SNIP

Re reading books

Oh I read that, I thought it was by Ian Serraillier, but a quick
google shows it isn't. I had all of his though, they've disappered
over the years.

There was another couple I've remembered that are war related [1] 'I
am David' and one about the evacuation from Dunkirk, were a boy takes
his small boat across, can't recall the name of that one now.

Right, time to head up North.

[1] I suppose it's hardly a surprise that books we were reading in the
70s were heavily influenced by the experiences of the authors.

 

l'Engle

 

God, another author I'd forgotten. I loved The Silver Sword.

And Ronald Welch, for kids' historical novels, too.

 

Every 'Famous Five' book, Dr Who and 'The Secret Seven'. Then _Watership_
_Down_, _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_. CS Lewis, Ray Bradbury.
I discovered Shakespeare at say, twelve and have loved it ever since. We
might in fact be getting approval to stage a full version of 'Hamlet' at
the school.

D.

--
des
French Biking Vocabulary: http://minilien.fr/a0kg0p

'Kaiser: "Can you prove to me the existence of G-d?"
Bismarck: "The Jews, your Majesty. The Jews"'

 

Not really kept anything from my early youth but I still have
a lot of the paperbacks I read when I was in my teens; everything
by Clive Barker and Shaun Hutson which probably explains a lot
about me. Most of the books I read now are autobiographies.

My eldest is now starting to read herself, so she gets a lot
of the "Chip & Biff" books to read with some other random ones
mixed in, as does the youngest. The youngest prefers the
"Topsy and Tim" series though.

I think they've got a few years to go before I let them loose
on my paperback collection (which is boxed up in the garage
anyway) and with them both being girls I doubt it will interest
them in the slightest anyway.

 

Direct Connection's Internet Introduced by Darren Irvine is still
quite funny.

 

One of the few books I still have from before my 20s, other than a very
dog-eared copy of The Witches that I haven't read in donkeys years, is
Relics by Shaun Hutson. I kept it because he's one of the worst writers
I've ever come across. Worse than Lovecraft. Possibly even worse than
Rowling. It's so bad it's borderline genius.

Two words: Garth Marenghi.

 

Yes, the Barbara Cartland of the horror world.

 

"UK Comms" was much funnier. No wait, not funnier, just longer.

 

<guilty glance at shelf of Lensman, Skylark etc>

At least I've got rid of all the John Norman rubbish. Err, almost all...

 

and which, staggeringly, is available (albeit 2nd hand) via Amazon.

 

Will you sign mine?

 

sign your what?

 

My most avid reading as a small boy was GA Henty. I still have a few
of his books for their curiosity value. I don't read any of my
childhood books nowadays to myself, but I find some of them are a real
pleasure to read to grandchildren - Kenneth Grahame and AA Milne in
particular.