Thursday 1 April 2010

Think it might be time to refresh and redirect this blog. Watch this space...

Thursday 30 April 2009

Inspired by the children's laureates picking their top children's books, I thought I would do the same. There's nothing like revisiting a well-loved book from your childhood to make you feel all warm and snuggly!

Secret Water by Arthur Ransome: I loved all the Swallows and Amazons books when I was younger, but this is my most reread by far. The Swallows and the Amazons are marooned in a new location and find themselves involved in a 'friendly' war between the Mastodon and the Eels. So. Much. Love.

I Capture the Castle by Dodi Smith: I read this first in my late teens and so wished I'd read it when I was younger. Cassandra is precisely the sort of heroine I would have identified with: romantic, literary and imaginative. And to top it all off she lives in a castle!

The Secret World of Polly Flint by Helen Cresswell: It was a close-run thing between this and Moondial, but ultimately this won out. Polly Flint is a young girl who can see things others can't, including the Time Gypsies who get stranded in our time, and rather blame Polly for this fact. But after befriending one of the gypsies, Polly realises that maybe she can help them...

Tom's Midnight Garden by Phillappa Pearce: I don't think I've reread this at all since childhood, and it's all rather blurry, but I just remember the magical feeling of the possibility of a clock striking 13 and a whole new world opening up.

Hexwood
by Diana Wynne Jones: Again, it was difficult to pick just one of Jones' books, as they are all so good, but I remember loving the sheer crazy complexity of it all. Particularly as it included bits of Arthurian legend which I loved when I was younger (still do, really, when we consider my love of Merlin!)

Uncle Jack and Operation Green by Jim Eldridge: I have a suspicion that this was merely a novelisation of the TV series, but it didn't matter at the time; I loved them both! We can probably blame my hippy, environmentalist leanings on my love of this book, though I also adored his arch-nemesis, known only as The Vixen.

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis: Far and away my favourite Narnia tale - you can tell by the fact that the spine is so much more worn out than the other books in the series! Eustace and Jill just felt somehow more identifiable-with than the Pevensies. And Puddleglum is just such a hero!

There we are. I'm certain the moment I publish this I'll think of 7 other books that could just as easily be on this list! If I had been born a few years later I'm sure I would have included Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, or maybe Mortal Engines, but I think I read all of those a bit too late in life to class them as my favourite books from childhood. Plus, deciding which Harry Potter is my favourite would be nigh on impossible!

Thursday 23 April 2009

I'm eating all this coal 'cause I'm trying to make a diamond


Just got Sky Larkin's album The Golden Spike through the post and am rather loving it. Short, sharp little pop/punk songs with a real fizz and drive behind them. 7/10 I reckon.

Wednesday 22 April 2009

Yay! Stephen Fry is returning to Bones!

With a squeeze and a sigh and that twinkle in your eye...



The perfect not-quite-love song for lazy, sunny afternoons.