Month: February 2020

So, I’m always happy to get an opportunity to yell about books and this was really fun. Thank you for the tag @lettersfromthelighthouse! I appreciate it because I’m trying to interact more with people on here but I’m really bad at it.

1. The Stone Age: One of the first books you ever remember reading.

The Alfie series by Shirley Hughes. I don’t know if they were actually the first books I ever read but they were certainly one of the first. I do remember having a special blanket just like Alfie in Alfie Gives a Hand. And also a stone that I called Bonting after the one Alfie finds in one of the other books.

2. Ancient Greece: Your favourite myth inspired book.

I enjoy myth and fairy tale inspired books a lot so it’s really hard for me to pick just one! For straightforward retellings I like Stephen Fry’s Mythos and Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology a lot, and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes is always a classic. Angela’s Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales is great too.

For things that are more ‘inspired by’ though: Madeline Miller’s Circe, Ragnarok and The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A.S. Byatt, The Bloody Chamber (Angela Carter again), The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, Edith Pattou’s North Child, and Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett. There are probably more I’m forgetting.

I’m mostly drawn to Arthurian-inspired material though, if I’m honest. Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence, T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, and The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro are all favourites. Plus the weird and wonderful retellings of the Mabinogion published by Seren Books. I think if I had to choose just one though it would be Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson. It’s not very well known, or at least I don’t see it discussed much, but it’s absolutely gorgeous.

3. Roman Empire: A book that features an impressive Empire or a Kingdom.

I suppose this kind of depends on your definition of impressive? I find a lot of the kingdoms in Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium very striking, particularly Gondor and Rohan and the elven kingdoms of the first age. And there’s also Númenor of course. Like @lettersfromthelighthouse​ pointed out though, the decline of empires seems to be more prominent than their glory in Tolkien and I tend to find that side of things more interesting to read about.

Otherwise, Fantastica from The Neverending Story maybe? For non-fiction I would dearly love to read more about the Mongol Empire and the medieval empires of West Africa (Ghana, Mali, Songhai).

4. The Middle Ages: A book that is an absolute bummer (positive or negative).

This is probably just me being a bit thick but I’m not exactly sure what this one is asking for? I suppose the most depressing book I can think of is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. While I did finish it it was a hard read. There’s not a scrap of hope anywhere in that story.

5. Renaissance: A book that you have learned a lot from OR a book that made you think a lot.

I’m definitely cheating by mentioning an author rather than a single book but I find basically all of Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing very thought-provoking. Her science-fiction (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Word for World is Forest, The Lathe of Heaven, The Dispossessed) really got me thinking about big issues like identity, environmentalism, gender, and political systems for the first time, and her essays have informed a lot of my opinions on writing itself.

Oh, and I’ve got to mention Terry Pratchett’s entire Discworld series here too. So, so wise.

6. The Enlightenment: A book about knowledge, science, discovery, or exploration.

Does Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons count for that last one? There are aspects of it that I’m kind of uncomfortable with now but it captures the wonder and freedom of childhood exploration very well.

If not, then Frankenstein for science and knowledge? (Lol, I really couldn’t have come up with two more different books if I’d tried!)

7. The Industrial Revolution: A book featuring an invention or a concept that you would love to have in your own life.

Dæmons from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. I’ve always liked the concept of witches’ familiars and I feel like dæmons are sort of a very intense form of that. Having one would make it very hard to be lonely, I think, which really appeals to me.

8. World War I. and II.: Your favourite historical fiction book featuring either of the world wars.

Again, there’s more than one book I want to mention here. I was actually kind of surprised at how many titles came to mind because tbh I’m all about medieval and earlier when it comes to historical time periods.

Strange Meeting by Susan Hill is short but easily one of the most subtly devastating books about WWI I’ve come across. It’s sad (naturally) and very sort of claustrophic and it haunted me for a long time after I’d finished reading it. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is also considered a classic for very good reason. At least in my opinion.

I haven’t really read as much set during WWII but Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian was a childhood favourite that I still find very touching. In fact, a lot of her other books are set either during or after the war and I’ve enjoyed them all. Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden. Markus Zusak‘s The Book Thief is one I find myself coming back to a lot as well. Oh, and The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier is wonderful!

9. Present day: A book you think everybody should read in present day.

Hmm, I don’t think there’s one single book that I’d recommend to everybody or one that I think everyone should read. We all have different preferences and opinions, and want different things from our reading. I do think it can be good to try books outside of your usual favourite genres every now and again though. That’s not to say anyone should force themselves to finish something they’re not enjoying but sometimes being open-minded can lead to nice surprises. I never expected that I would like hard science-fiction, for example, but I really enjoyed Isaac Asimov’s robot stories.

I don’t really know anyone well enough to tag them tbh!