The Prince was a book requirement for my degree, that for some reason, I absolutely loved! And I think the text comes in somewhere around the 100 page mark, so not particularly weighty!
Dorothy Dunnett is fantastic! You might want to start with King Hereafter, if you've listened and/or read LOTN. Slightly later time period, but similar in some ways, although definitely a more female flavour. A lot of things are left unsaid or alluded too. I still don't understand how, as an eleven-year-old, I decided Dunnett was my kind of read, possibly because I've only caught her out on three errors! She's left me very insecure about my own writing though.
Orzcy's fluff, but good fluff. One of the classic historical fiction writers, up there with Rafael Sabatini and Russell Thorndike for a good yarn. Research is a bit sketchy, and continuity, but there you go!
I love Peter Pan! It's fun!
I enjoy the Comedies more when I watch them than when I read them. And they often seem to require a broader treatment than our PC world allows! Giggle!
I read an lot of dross and popular writing (all of Julia Quinn in two weeks), but I find getting into more recent fiction difficult. What I've listed here are the favourites I go back to again and again. Lots of other books I enjoy (Deanna Raybourn's books are current favourites) but they don't crack the top five, which hasn't changed much in thirty years, I regret to say!
Ooh, LOTN!! I'd read The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman and LOTN before I knew that RA had read it. Needless to say, I hastily bought the audio book -'nuff said! I'll definitely check out King Hereafter - sounds right up my street.
Going on a bit in time from LOTN, is The Last English King by Julian Rathbone - narrated by one of his followers, it's about Harold, Hastings and the aftermath and a good read as well.
I agree with you that the Comedies are a better visual than read medium, but given a choice, I'd go for the Histories and most of the Tragedies every time. I can still quote chunks of Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard II and Henry IV and V!! (how sad am I?) Thinking of Histories, I confess to liking Kit Marlowe, too - Tamburlaine and Edward II particularly.
Two favs from my schooldays are George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody - Victorian middle-class snobbery at its absolute best and Sellars and Yeatman's definitive history spoof 1066 and All That.
The Prince was a book requirement for my degree, that for some reason, I absolutely loved! And I think the text comes in somewhere around the 100 page mark, so not particularly weighty!
Dorothy Dunnett is fantastic! You might want to start with King Hereafter, if you've listened and/or read LOTN. Slightly later time period, but similar in some ways, although definitely a more female flavour. A lot of things are left unsaid or alluded too. I still don't understand how, as an eleven-year-old, I decided Dunnett was my kind of read, possibly because I've only caught her out on three errors! She's left me very insecure about my own writing though.
Orzcy's fluff, but good fluff. One of the classic historical fiction writers, up there with Rafael Sabatini and Russell Thorndike for a good yarn. Research is a bit sketchy, and continuity, but there you go!
I love Peter Pan! It's fun!
I enjoy the Comedies more when I watch them than when I read them. And they often seem to require a broader treatment than our PC world allows! Giggle!
I read an lot of dross and popular writing (all of Julia Quinn in two weeks), but I find getting into more recent fiction difficult. What I've listed here are the favourites I go back to again and again. Lots of other books I enjoy (Deanna Raybourn's books are current favourites) but they don't crack the top five, which hasn't changed much in thirty years, I regret to say!
Reply
Going on a bit in time from LOTN, is The Last English King by Julian Rathbone - narrated by one of his followers, it's about Harold, Hastings and the aftermath and a good read as well.
I agree with you that the Comedies are a better visual than read medium, but given a choice, I'd go for the Histories and most of the Tragedies every time. I can still quote chunks of Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard II and Henry IV and V!! (how sad am I?) Thinking of Histories, I confess to liking Kit Marlowe, too - Tamburlaine and Edward II particularly.
Two favs from my schooldays are George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody - Victorian middle-class snobbery at its absolute best and Sellars and Yeatman's definitive history spoof 1066 and All That.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment