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...

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...

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...

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 ...

I'll let you know what think, Kate Mary and Anita.

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!

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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...

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 ...

My journal arrived yesterday 2/4 and I had several hours of engrossed reading of it last night. I went straight to my contribution (as I do) and was mightily impressed with Tony' s ability to get the best illustrations (Perce the parrot - I didn't expect that one) and the best out of them - the ones...