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Tuesday 1 September 2009

Fifteen Books That Shook My World...

books Pictures, Images and Photos

I first saw this Meme over at my dahlink Saz's, and it came to her via big, bold Suldog and enigmatic Lime...

I adore books, and it never seems out of place to blog about them... Endlesslessly, as we all do from time to time... de temps en temps, mes bloggy dust-covers...

From Fhina's childhood, when we were being forced to read Watership Down at school, which I hated, and have to stuff my fingers in my ears and go 'La, la, la, la, la,' whenever I hear Art Garfunkel singing, 'Bright Eyes...', I chose this for myself from the school book club, The Owl Service (1967) by Alan Garner... An adolescent fantasy (which frit the life out of me), based on some of the stories linked to The Welsh myths Mabinogion, medieaval Welsh manuscripts... orly tiny Pictures, Images and Photos I didn't fully understand it then, but it enchanted my imagination and it spoke to me in my early teen years... Perhaps I need to read it again.

Mary Norton : The Borrowers Afield Pictures, Images and Photos The Borrowers, by Mary Norton (1952). Once again, a fantasy. I hardly ever read fantasy novels these days... but my imagination must have been twitched by these novels, read while in my formative years... Hence being as mad as a box of frogs these days... I have literature to blame! I loved the inventiveness of the Borrowers, and their lives hidden from the view of humans.

A Gathering Light Pictures, Images and Photos A Gathering Light, also known as A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. Based on the Adirondack Big Moose Lake murder case of 1906, but concerned more with the life of a young girl who gets caught up in it. I found it haunting and spell-binding.

Persuasion Pictures, Images and Photos

Persuasion by Jane Austen. The first Austen novel that ever wrapped me in its vest of cotton muslin, covering my hair with lavender and frosting me with ancient Georgian dust, embuing in me a wish for life-long romance.

Meh, tant pis! You can't always get what you want..., as le Mick once lip-synched!

bleakness Pictures, Images and Photos Bleak House, by Charles Dickens. If you never heard me tell of this before now, I once shuttled my then three year old son, Grizz, around Dickens' home in Holborn, London. One of the colourful staff whispered to him in an old West Country accent... "D'you'm like ol' Charlie Dickens, then boy?!"

Perhaps I am (after all) to blame that my Teenager has only ever read one novel? And that a Terry Pratchett I bought for him?! No-one tells Victorian stories as well as Dickens, right? The fogs, the atmosphere, the mysteries..., and the bits that go nowhere because, writing for perodicals, he sometimes forgot some of the plot!

I know just how that feels... Have you caught my last two ramblings over at Mad Manic Mamas?

Jane Eyre-Book Pictures, Images and Photos

I cannot leave today without my heart's favourite book, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Need I say more?

You know it, I hope... If not, read it now! Fhina is watching, mind! victori Pictures, Images and Photos

13 comments:

LadyFi said...

Jane Eyre is wonderful! And I too loved The Owl Service!

Have you tried Middlemarch by George Eliot? Well worth reading!

Clippy Mat said...

ahh The Borrowers. Happy memories, long forgotten of reading those stories. I loved them. Thanks for the recall.
:-)

Unknown said...

Hello Fhina,

I should be hard put to remember books from my tender years (not to mention last month) but I do recall The Borrowers. I have read Jane Eyre but not the other classics eventhough they are sitting on my bookshelf!!! Can't wait for the rest of your 15.

Unknown said...

OOhh! I also meant to say that I did read Watership Down and went on to Duncton Wood by William Horwood, which is a similar tale but involving moles!

French Fancy... said...

My friend was the Dickens House Scholar back in 1990 and in gratitude for the bursary it got her she had to be the curator every Friday.

whispers - she once let me sit at his desk and hold his pen.

blognut said...

Oh, Fhina! I have missed you so much. I love these books you've chosen. Well, the ones I've read, anyway. The rest? I'll get started on immediately.

XOXOXO
Bloggus

♥ Braja said...

So many out there, no?

Fhina...missed you! Am home since last night, jetlagged but happy...xox

Anonymous said...

I am going to have to have a bash at this one Fhina...books have been my passion since I first learnt to read at aged five. Trouble is, I would find it so difficult to choose from the thousands of books I must have read in seventy years.

lovely collection.

Suldog said...

Tremendous! I'm so happy to see you doing this meme. It's probably my favorite meme ever, and I had a grand time doing it myself.

Carma Sez said...

I can see that I need to get back to doing some reading -- do blogs count???

findingmywingsinlife said...

Fhina,
My dear it has been much too long since I've commented on here! Always so busy and not taking time to thoroughly visit all my lovely friends, I do apologize for not being around as much on here.

I love reading and these are intriguing so I'll have to look them up and read them and see for myself why you love them.

Alan Burnett said...

Fascinating list although I'm not sure about the illustration you used for Jane Eyre ("Jane Eyre ... from the story by Charlotte Bronte") When do we get the rest of your list?

Bee said...

You've got several of my very, very favorites on here -- especially Jane Eyre (my heart's book, too) and Persuasion (also agreed on the romance bit).

I've been meaning to visit Dickens' house for a while now . . . I shall do so in September and report back!

Something I wrote earlier...

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