Search found 424 matches
- 28 Apr 2024, 00:29
- Forum: The Books
- Topic: What Enid Blyton book have you recently bought?
- Replies: 6222
- Views: 359175
Re: What Enid Blyton book have you recently bought?
About an hour ago I bought 'Scamp and Caroline' at a local high school car boot sale for $5AUST.
- 27 Apr 2024, 01:46
- Forum: Other Authors
- Topic: Anne Barrett - Caterpillar Hall, etc.
- Replies: 45
- Views: 7010
Re: Anne Barrett - Caterpillar Hall, etc.
Just finished 'Songberd's Grove', so here goes. For a start I hadn't noticed the spelling (and nor had the hero, Martin, who was expecting something far more bucolic of his new home, which turned out to be suburban flat in an old re-purposed 'block of seven blackish-grey houses' ... like 'a collecti...
- 21 Apr 2024, 01:38
- Forum: Other Authors
- Topic: What other author are you reading at the moment?
- Replies: 4733
- Views: 2042939
Re: What other author are you reading at the moment?
Yes Anita, there's a strong argument to put Dickens, Hardy and Eliot up there with the best. As for Waugh I can still remember the first time I read the first page of Brideshead and that spine-tingling hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-my-head sensation, which I get more often from verse than from pro...
- 20 Apr 2024, 06:05
- Forum: Miscellaneous Blyton
- Topic: Why Enid Blyton Matters
- Replies: 6
- Views: 897
Re: Why Enid Blyton Matters
Another reason why she matters which I'm sure I've posted elsewhere but can't find - her influence on other writers. I've just read in today's paper an interview with Australian crime novelist 'best-selling queen of rural suspense' Fleur McDonald. What made her love writing? Her answer: 'Enid Blyton...
- 20 Apr 2024, 01:56
- Forum: Other Authors
- Topic: What other author are you reading at the moment?
- Replies: 4733
- Views: 2042939
Re: What other author are you reading at the moment?
As I've probably mentioned elsewhere, in Gaskell's North and South (one of my favourites) John Thornton's first proposal to Margaret Hale is as entertaining to read as Darcy's to Elizabeth. Both men manage to deeply offend the women that they are in love with. The difference is that the question of ...
- 14 Apr 2024, 00:38
- Forum: Other Authors
- Topic: Anne Barrett - Caterpillar Hall, etc.
- Replies: 45
- Views: 7010
Re: Anne Barrett - Caterpillar Hall, etc.
I'll let you know what think, Kate Mary and Anita.
- 13 Apr 2024, 03:49
- Forum: Other Authors
- Topic: Anne Barrett - Caterpillar Hall, etc.
- Replies: 45
- Views: 7010
Re: Anne Barrett - Caterpillar Hall, etc.
How delightful, a worthy writer for children I'd barely heard of. Sure enough I found 'Songbird's Grove' and 'Midway' among my Puffins.
My next children's book read is decided!
My next children's book read is decided!
- 08 Apr 2024, 00:02
- Forum: The Enid Blyton Society Journal
- Topic: Journal 83
- Replies: 95
- Views: 3966
Re: Journal 83
Tim Venning reminded me of my first reading of 'Five Go to Mystery Moor' and his photographs of moorland certainly resonated, all part of the magic I associated with England. The very word 'moor' was enough to send shivers down my spine. The reflection about the influence of 'pony' books (which I ad...
- 07 Apr 2024, 01:00
- Forum: Other Authors
- Topic: What other author are you reading at the moment?
- Replies: 4733
- Views: 2042939
Re: What other author are you reading at the moment?
Another thought. It is conceivable that Blyton read or re-read 'King Solomon's Mines' as she decided on the setting of her next 'Secret' book. In order to establish the date of the eclipse Haggard has Captain Good provided with an almanac in his medicine chest and Blyton provides Jack with a pocket ...
- 06 Apr 2024, 07:13
- Forum: For Sale
- Topic: Up the Faraway Tree - £400 for a copy dust jacket?!
- Replies: 11
- Views: 1002
Re: Up the Faraway Tree - £400 for a copy dust jacket?!
No IceMaiden it was perfectly clear - I just didn't read carefully enough and jumped to the wrong conclusion. Occasionally, when I was a book-dealer collectors put the hard word on me to colour-copy rare dust-jackets but I never did. I felt that there was something unsatisfactory about it, not wrong...
- 06 Apr 2024, 06:48
- Forum: Other Authors
- Topic: What other author are you reading at the moment?
- Replies: 4733
- Views: 2042939
Re: What other author are you reading at the moment?
I've just read "King Solomon's Mines" by Rider Haggard for the first time. There can't be much doubt that Enid Blyton read it as a girl - all those underground tunnels and treasure hoards and death defying escapes. A direct influence may be the eclipses a lunar eclipse in KSM as against a ...
- 06 Apr 2024, 06:05
- Forum: The Enid Blyton Society Journal
- Topic: Journal 83
- Replies: 95
- Views: 3966
Re: Journal 83
Thanks Moonraker and Boatbuilder I've written a note to myself in journal 83 to refer to this page in the future (just as I wrote a note to myself in Journal 79 when I discovered that I could access the Journal index). 'Return to Ragamuffin' by John Pickup brought back memories. Imagine what it was ...
- 04 Apr 2024, 23:22
- Forum: The Enid Blyton Society Journal
- Topic: Journal 83
- Replies: 95
- Views: 3966
Re: Journal 83
Thanks Moonraker and Hannah, I'll try 'copy' first and see where it copies to. I meant, if I can't find the copy ... . Now for a couple more comments on the journal. I was delighted with Tony's choice of Blyton story, partly because the illustrator is a favourite of mine, but mainly because the 'Bim...
- 04 Apr 2024, 05:23
- Forum: For Sale
- Topic: Up the Faraway Tree - £400 for a copy dust jacket?!
- Replies: 11
- Views: 1002
Re: Up the Faraway Tree - £400 for a copy dust jacket?!
The dust-jacket is a copy! Good grief, I read it as a copy with the dust-jacket and thought it not over-priced in comparison with other copies of the book. A copy was up recently on ebay without a jacket for a quarter of that, which would value this facsimile jacket at 300. Hmn. To paraphrase Gertru...
- 04 Apr 2024, 04:55
- Forum: The Enid Blyton Society Journal
- Topic: Journal 83
- Replies: 95
- Views: 3966
Re: Journal 83
Here is the much more , but not as much as I posted yesterday which disappeared into the Ether? Clouds? a Land at the top of the Faraway Tree? when I pressed 'submit'. I was too annoyed to start again - in fact my mind was as blank as the screen, so this time I won't put all the eggs in this basket ...