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56+ Works 2,773 Members 340 Reviews

Works by Clare West

Jane Eyre (Oxford Bookworms Library: Stage 6) (1991) — Author — 212 copies
Anne of Green Gables [adapted - Oxford Bookworms] (1994) — Author — 204 copies
David Copperfield [adapted ∙ Oxford Bookworms] (1994) — Author — 171 copies
A Christmas Carol [adapted - Oxford Bookworms] (1991) — Author — 156 copies
Great Expectations (Oxford Bookworms Library) (1992) — Author — 150 copies
The Secret Garden [adapted - Oxford Bookworms] (1993) — Author — 124 copies
Wuthering Heights [adapted - Oxford Bookworms (1978) — Author — 109 copies
Gulliver's Travels [adapted - Oxford Bookworms] (1993) — Author; Retold by — 105 copies
The Joy Luck Club [adapted - Oxford Bookworms] (2002) — Author — 104 copies
Pride and Prejudice [adapted - Oxford Bookworms] (1995) — Author — 100 copies
Silas Marner (adapted ∙ Oxford Bookworms) (1994) — Author — 57 copies
Sense and Sensibility [adapted - Oxford Bookworms - Stage 6] (2002) — Author; Retold by — 56 copies
Kidnapped [adapted - Oxford Bookworms] (1995) — Author — 54 copies
The African Queen [adapted - Oxford Bookworms] (1960) — Editor — 50 copies
Crime Never Pays (1993) 47 copies
The Age of Innocence [adapted - Oxford Bookworms] (2007) — Author — 37 copies
The Three Musketeers [adapted - Dominoes level 2] (2003) — Adapter — 32 copies
Heat and Dust [adapted - Oxford Bookworms] (1991) — Editor — 31 copies
Persuasion [adapted - Oxford Bookworms] (2006) — Author; Editor — 23 copies
Decline and Fall (adapted ∙ Oxford Bookworms Stage 6) (1998) — Retold by; Editor — 22 copies
Leaving No Footprint [Oxford Bookworms] (2010) — Author — 15 copies
Recycling your English (1993) 5 copies
Heat and dust 2 copies

Associated Works

Persuasion (1817) — Editor, some editions — 28,518 copies

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Reviews

So damn good. Jane's character is one of the best and most enjoyable to read in literature. She knows what she wants and refuses to bend her standards. Her progression over the course of her book, both internally and in her relationships, is such a satisfying journey. The writing is gorgeous and evokes that lovely Gothic tone to perfection. The only thing that still bothers be about the story is her relationship with Mr. Rochester. He needs to be dependent in order for her to feel equal in the relationship (which admittedly, he was an overbearing jerk completely ignoring her wishes the first time around). I certainly understand why he's preferable to his foil St. John (what a horrid man), in that he provides a meeting of like minds, but the way in which the story tones him down with physical damage has never sat right with me. Overall, though, Jane herself is more than enough to carry me through this book over and over again.… (more)
½
 
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hissingpotatoes | 5 other reviews | Dec 28, 2021 |
Is this the funniest novel ever written? Yes.

Oh, I know, I know, you have an opinion. I'll admit, there's strong competition: anything by P.G. Wodehouse. Evelyn Waugh. (I have been scarred by my loathing of the TV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, and I really must overcome that, and read either Scoop or Vile Bodies, and get back to you.) There's Douglas Adams, of course, but Hitchhiker's Guide started its life as a radio program and -- as delightful as it is -- the novel remains, in my heart, a novelisation of that original transcendent experience. Diary of Nobody, Three Men in a Boat. The Third Policeman. There are contenders for genre tastes, like Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, or The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick deWitt. But, for me, Cold Comfort Farm wins hands-down because its humor manages to be both completely and perfectly of-its-time, and timeless, simultaneously.

Of its time, CCF is a charming little time capsule of 1930s characters and attitudes (some pretty offensive), poking fun at all sort of contemporary manners, mores and sacred cows: smug intellectuals, high-brow literature, low-brow Hollywood, fashion, religion, family .... Probably 9/10s of the jokes and references go over the head of the modern reader, and an annotated version, that explains some of Gibbon's targets, might be fun. But there are enough remaining that are perfectly clear (the Brontes, DH Lawrence, even Jane Austen, Clark Gable & Gary Cooper, Dr Freud, self-help books and international evangelical preachers .... I've almost certainly missed some.) Gibbons is spoofing a style and attitude and genre of writing -- bucolic gothic? --that now may be thoroughly out of fashion, but has lingered, and spawned enough copycats that it still resonates.

And her half-hearted effort to set the action 20 years in her future (Why? Dear God, why?) is all part of the fun: she anticipates video phones, airplanes as common as motor cars, post dropped on your doorstep by air, the gentrification of certain unlikely parts of London -- That happened!!! -- a brutal war in the late 1940s with Nicaragua (Nicaragua?) and wonderful advances in brassiere technology. But rather misses the fact that there's going to be a bit of bother with some funny-looking guy in Germany, at the end of the decade. It ought to be an embarrassing debacle -- but it's not.

And that's because her targets -- smug intellectuals, high-brow literature, low-brow Hollywood, fashion, religion and family, yes most of all FAMILY -- are completely timeless and seem almost unchanged, and her aim is true. The Mr. Mybug in your life may not argue that Branwell Bronte wrote the sister's novels -- but you will almost certainly have a Mr. Mybug somewhere in your life, who is constantly "sharing" his/her hare-brained ideas about life, the universe and everything. Your Adam Lambsbreath may not insist on clettering the dirty dishes with a thorn twig, instead of using a proper dishmop, as God intended. But just try to suggest that he/she could upgrade their phone, or move from VHS to dvd ... Your family, god love'em, may not be the Starkadders -- but just try to tell me that there aren't some Starkadder-ish tendencies there.

And Flora Poste is the most delightful creation: the tireless agent of restoring balance to the universe, who would be very exhausting to know in real life. And who, I suspect, we'd be happy to avoid like the plague -- but safely confined between the covers of a novel, we can delight in her setting everything and everyone straight, and just imagine her convincing our very own Aunt Ada Doom that, whatever it was that she saw in the woodshed -- just get over it ...
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maura853 | Jul 11, 2021 |
Great writer. GREAT. Why didn't I give it four stars. Sorry. Jane is just annoying.
 
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GiGiGo | 5 other reviews | Feb 5, 2021 |
To set the stage: Africa, World War I. Rose is high spirited, a spunky woman despite being a strait-laced and virginal missionary's sister. She is out for revenge for the death of her brother; she wants to torpedo the Germans to strike a blow for England. Enter gin-swilling mechanic Charlie Allnut and his river boat, the African Queen. Rose is only too eager to learn all about the African Queen to determine its full usefulness to exact her revenge - torpedoing the German police boat, the Konigin Luise. Rose's patriotism and lust for adventure adds up to a woman Allnut has never seen the likes of before. She somehow convinces him to take on her quest and it is her feisty nature that gets her and Allnut through deadly rapids, thick mangroves, choking weeds, malaria infested swarms of mosquitoes and stifling heat down the Bora delta.
Typical and predictable, a relationship blooms between Rose and Charlie, but how could it not when confined on a river boat for days on end? As they say, misery loves company. Despite seeing the relationship a mile away Forester reissued his story so that he had the opportunity to present the end of the story as he originally intended. It's not what you expect.
… (more)
 
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SeriousGrace | 1 other review | Aug 18, 2019 |

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Associated Authors

Kate Simpson Illustrator
Jennifer Bassett Series Editor
Jack London Original story
Thomas Hardy Original author
Richard Bell Illustrator

Statistics

Works
56
Also by
1
Members
2,773
Popularity
#9,259
Rating
4.2
Reviews
340
ISBNs
240
Languages
8

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