100 books

[cyphomandra]

Joining the throng! I'm really enjoying what people have picked. My list is here.

For mine, I restricted it to novels (no manga, no fanfic, no comics, no picture books, no poetry, no short stories, no plays, no non fiction etc etc) and one book per author. Observant readers will notice that I've therefore decided My Family and Other Animals is fiction rather than memoir and I've also snuck in a 3 in 1 omnibus for Dragonlance Legends because that's how I read them. I had to add 8 books that weren't in the database and one of them is so obscure that I can't find an image of it on the internet, so I had to add my own photo (which isn't great; the dustjacket is long gone and the title is imprinted and not inked, so hard to read at the best of times).

Comments

[china_shop]

I got 16 of yours, which is pretty good for me! :-)

(Some of them I'm pretty sure you recced to me, ha.)

[ambyr]

Interesting--I think you've got the highest concentration of books I haven't even heard of! I don't know how many of those are NZ authors that weren't widely published across the Pacific (though I did read The Changeover multiple times as a kid, at least).

I thing that Grey King cover would have given me nightmares as a child; Cafall looks ready to eat the reader.

[osprey_archer]

32 books, but definitely a high concentration of books I've never heard of, too.

And Watership Down has been on so many lists that I'm starting to feel maybe I should read it.

[nnozomi]

Almost exactly 1/3. Lovely to see Wall of Words, The Westing Game, Paper Chains... Also curious about why, under the one-book-per-author restriction, you picked some of the ones you did, ie Swallowdale, House With A Clock In Its Walls, Rilla of Ingleside, Dragonquest, Spiderweb for Two, Peter's Room...which are mostly exactly the ones I'd pick myself, although I might replace the last two with Then There Were Five and End of Term. <3

[regshoe]

13/100! Wow, only one book per author sounds like a challenge. But I like your choice of one Hornblower book :D

[thisbluespirit]

22/100! Although there were also some of the rest where I wasn't entirely sure if I'd read them or not or where I'd read different books by the same author/in the same series, but not that one.

And you reminded me I really should have included Which Witch? I read that one so many times! And, indeed, The Great Ghost Rescue, but WW was my first Ibbotson and therefore the default.

[cyphomandra]

Ha if I’d done comics or picture books your recs would definitely have shown up!

[cyphomandra]

I think most of them are obscure British ones, actually - only Mahy and the bone people are NZ authors.

Ha - that was the library copy’s cover! I can see what you mean but I just thought “friendly doggie” :D

[china_shop]

:D :D :D

How are you going with Cabin Pressure, btw?

[skygiants]

35! House of Stairs haunts me to this day tbh.

[cyphomandra]

I finally finished This Inevitable Ruin, which was nearly 29 hours, so I have just listened to the first episode! I like it so far…

[cyphomandra]

Watership Down is great! You can also read it as a WWII book if that’s any more enticing…

[cyphomandra]

I love Wall of Words. We actually studied Kennemore’s The Fortunate Few at high school, but that’s so bleak that even while I admire it, it will never be my fave.

Ah yes the joys of selecting one book per author! I got given Swallowdale and Swallows and Amazons as a birthday present as my first Ransome’s, and athough Winter Holiday and Picts and the Martyrs probably battle it out for my favourite book, Swallowdale set up camp inside my reading mind - the lovingly described salvage sequence! The wreck itself! That fantastic bit with Titty and the wax figurine!

House with a Clock in its Walls was a similar early exposure that for ages had me pleasantly terrifying myself by watching any cars that seemed to be following ours too closely. Dragonquest was my fave, because I really liked F’nor and his doomed expedition to the Red Star, although it’s Menolly’s books that I tend to pick up for re-reading.

My library didn’t have And Then There Were Five, so I actually only read it recently! But I love the puzzle/treasure hunt of Spiderweb.

I should post about Rilla shortly because I did it for my WWI in vintage children’s fiction talk - at the same conference we had an academic doing a close examination of End of Term that was fantastic! I think with the Marlows I could have picked any one of them on another day.

[cyphomandra]

I actually started reading the Hornblower books because the characters in one of my other favourite series (Antonia Forest’s Marlows) love them! Flying Colours is my favorite, though.

[cyphomandra]

Great Ghost Rescue was my first! I do love her adult books, too, but could not get past that first one and all its quirks and kindnesses.

[china_shop]

\o/

[nnozomi]

Swallowdale set up camp inside my reading mind - the lovingly described salvage sequence! The wreck itself! That fantastic bit with Titty and the wax figurine!
yes, exactly! Just the same for me. (It occurs to me there's a kind of callback to the wax figurine--not the thing itself but the way Titty feels about having "done magic"--in Pigeon Post when it turns out she can dowse?)

Dragonquest was my fave, because I really liked F’nor and his doomed expedition to the Red Star
lol, we differ on this one--F'nor is fine, but I acquired a permanent crush on F'lar when I was eight or so, and there was a point when I could recite the wedding duel scene pretty much from memory.

I love the puzzle/treasure hunt of Spiderweb.
No argument! I'm awed by how well those books stand up to adult reading, too.

I should post about Rilla shortly
Oh, yes please! And more about your conference if you feel like it. <3