BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE MAY - GARDAM & GODDARD

JANE GARDAM



Born in 1928 in North Yorkshire (don't complain, I know I do tend to pick my home county disproportionately!) and educated at the University of London. She came to the writing of novels relatively late (well into her forties) but has proven both prolific and successful. The only double winner of Whitbread/Costa novel awards, she is possibly best known for her Old Filth trilogy.

I haven't had the pleasure of her books yet and I am looking forward to making their acquaintance.

ROBERT GODDARD



From the south of England and born in 1954, Goddard is rare among thriller writers in being both popular for his storytelling as well as having readers actually admire his plotting and writing skills.
Many twists and turns often with a historical element and, Amber-esque, usually pitting a normal man or woman against the odds. I love his books so I am in for a treat.

Gardam books

Children's books

A Long Way from Verona (1971)
A Few Fair Days (1971)
The Summer After the Funeral (1973)
Bridget and William (1981)
The Hollow Land (1981), received the 1983 Whitbread Children's Book Award
Horse (1982)
Kit (1983)
Kit in Boots (1986)
Swan (1987)
Through the Doll's House Door (1987)
Tufty Bear (1996)
The Kit Stories (1998)

Short story collections

Black Faces, White Faces (1975), David Higham Prize for Fiction (1975), Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize (1975)
The Sidmouth Letters (1980)
The Pangs of Love and Other Stories (1983), Katherine Mansfield Award for 1984
Trio: Three Stories from Cheltenham (1993)
Showing the Flag and Other Stories (1989)
Going into a Dark House (1994), PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award for 1995
Missing the Midnight (1997)
The Green Man (1998)
The People on Privilege Hill (2007), nominated for the National Short Story Prize
The Stories of Jane Gardam (2014)

Novels

Bilgewater (1977)
God on the Rocks (1978); *Prix Baudelaire (France) (1989): nominated for The Booker Prize Best Novel(1978)
Crusoe's Daughter (1985)
The Queen of the Tambourine (1991);Whitbread Novel Award (1991)
Black Woolly Pony (1993)
Faith Fox (1996)
The Flight of the Maidens (2000)
Old Filth (2004)
The Man in the Wooden Hat (2009)
Last Friends (2013), shortlisted for the 2014 Folio Prize

Non-Fiction

The Iron Coast 1994

Goddard Books

The Ends of the Earth (2015)
The Corners of the Globe (2014)
The Ways of the World (2013)
Fault Line (UK: March 2012)
Blood Count (UK: March 2011)
Long Time Coming (UK: January 2010)
Found Wanting (September 2008)
Name to a Face (September 2007)
Never Go Back (April 2006)
Sight Unseen (May 2005)
Play to the End (May 2004)
Days Without Number (May 2003)
Dying to Tell (November 2001)
Sea Change (November 2000)
Set in Stone (November 1999)
Caught in the Light (June 1998)
Beyond Recall (June 1997)
Out of the Sun (June 1996)
Borrowed Time (April 1995)
Closed Circle (November 1993)
Hand in Glove (November 1992)
Take No Farewell (June 1991)
Into the Blue (May 1990)
Painting the Darkness (June 1989)
In Pale Battalions (May 1988)
Past Caring (August 1986)

What I will read

JANE GARDAM



FAITH FOX

ROBERT GODDARD



FAULT LINE

I plan to read Old Filth and Into the Blue. In fact, LT has been suggesting that I read Old Filth!

I have Old Filth and Closed Circle from the library so I'm ready to go.

old Filth and Ways of the World for me :)

Even if I still have Feb, March and April books to read...

I'm sorry to say I will be passing on the May BAC, as I have neither Gardam nor Goddard on my shelves, and I'm determined to read more of my own stuff for a while. I have read God on the Rocks, and enjoyed it. I will definitely read more of Gardam in the future. And I'll be dropping by this thread to see what everyone is getting into.

Just fetched home In Pale Battalions from the library.

140 pages into In Pale Battalions and I am colossally bored by this story and these people.

Finished Old Filth tonight. It wasn't bad, but it didn't do much for me.

I read Old Filth at the end of 2013, and so was happy to have every excuse to finally read The Man in the Wooden Hat. I ended up enjoying this second novel more than the first, most probably because I had an idea of what to expect from Gardam in terms of style and quirky approach, and it's made me want to go back and read Old Filth again (which is was I wanted to do all along), but before tackling Last Friends.

As far as Robert Goddard goes, I had rather a disappointment with him this month. I had really enjoyed my first book by him, Past Caring, but I couldn't make myself care one whit for The Ways of the World, the first book in a series I probably won't pursue. There'll be more Goddard in my reading life all the same.

"His memory was as mysterious and private as anybody's. He knew only only that his competence and happiness were at their greatest in Far Eastern sunlight and the crash and rattle of monsoon rain, the suck and grind and roar of hot seas on white shores. It was in the East that he won most of his cases."

-The Man in the Wooden Hat (a short description of Edward "Old Filth" Feathers).

"But it was the hat that informed the man. It was clearly the hat that had inspired the carving. It had a tight round crown and a cartwheel of an oak brim, biscuit-thin, spread out much wider than the stopped shoulders. The hat of a religious? A pilgrim? A wandering poet? Had it all been carved from one piece of wood? Was the hat separate? Did it lift off? She became hypnotized by the hat. She had to touch it."

-Betty Feathers discovering the The Man in the Wooden Hat.



^I really enjoyed the follow-up to Old Filth. It may not have hit the highs of the first book but this one had plenty to admire. It is mostly told from Betty's POV. She is Edward's wife. Looking forward to Last Friends, the final book in the trilogy.

Thanks, Paul, for giving me a reason to finally pick this up.

I finished Into the Blue this evening. It was a great weekend read to kick off summer, and it held my interest through a medical appointment today. In the end, there were a few too many plot threads and I wasn't completely satisfied with the resolution. Even though I saw well ahead of time where most threads were heading, one had a big twist that I hadn't anticipated.

I've got the short story collection The Sidmouth Letters out from the library.

Currently reading The Sidmouth Letters published in 1980. The first story is strikingly similar in tone to Old Filth and similarly laced with colonial snobberies. Language is horribly dated though.

My great aunt, Enid's great grandmother, was surrounded by her tools and weapons - a couple of walking sticks, a long picker, several rugs, a box of sweets and a huge black handbag bulging like some old ship come home from the wars. Its ancient cracked sides and loose old tortoiseshell handles brought such a rush of memory I had to sit down... From her last story 'The Sidmouth Letters', about a (fictional) discovery of letters from Jane Austen. Worth the book for this story alone.

Just finished Goddard's Closed Circle. Well written, but its plot is like a generic noir flick.

I chose Old Filth; it was a 4 star read for me. I especially enjoyed her character development.

I started and finished Last Friends over the weekend, and moved onto Play to the End, although I was sorely tempted to go back and re-read Old Filth. The Gardam trilogy has the feel to me of a set of interlocking puzzle pieces. Each book stands alone and yet they are not particularly redundant, even though each one covers similar ground from different points of view and reveals new details. I can't easily think of a book that has made me think more about "how did the author do that?"

When I checked out my shelves, I had a few books by Goddard but I have never read any of them. I chose to go with the earliest book that I own which is Caught in the Light, really a good read for someone who is interested in genealogy with the tie in with the history of a family from Victorian times.

I just picked up Caught in the Light as a Kindle cheapie for my UK Kindle. I know May is past, but I do want to read the second two books in the Maxted trilogy soon...

Goddard is fun; not great literature, but lots of twists. My faves are Past Caring, Hand in Glove and Out of the Blue. I wouldn't recommend reading more than one every six months or so, though. They are very same-y.

Caught in the Light has an interesting story line but I am having a bit of a problem with how the hero finds out some of the vital information. This is my first Goddard but I have other ones on the shelf also bought because the blurbs on the cover caught my attention. He seems to write about subjects I find fascinating.

I just finished The Hollow Land by Gardam on 5/31. Beautiful spare language makes this touching story of young Bell Teesdale and his friend Harry Bateman special and brings the reader close to the hollow land and the interesting characters therein such as Granny Crack, the Egg Witch, the Household Word and her surly daughter Poppet. A wonderful story.

I am playing catch up with my various challenge reading and finally finished my Gardam read, The Flight of the Maidens earlier this week. An okay read of three 17 year old girls set in the summer of 1946, about to embark on their post public school lives. I think the audioread made the continual shifting in narration to be a bit of a problem for me, but overall an okay read.

Well, better late than never. I finally finished the Goddard that I started months ago. Caught in the Light had an intriquing premise and I enjoyed the first bit, it dragged in the middle where I abandoned it for months. I finally finshed it and realized that if I had just read another chapter further all those months ago I would have been into the fast reading end of the book. I hope the other Goddards I have on the shelf won't be the same and will keep my interest all the way through.