British Author Challenge 2023 planning thread

The year is coming to a close so it's time to start planning the next BAC. I have a tentative list sketched out, but would love suggestions for themes and authors.

I'll post the list here as the selections are finalized.

January: Rosemary Sutcliff & Fred D'Aguiar https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7982214
February: Short Stories & Novellas https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7982354
March: Vita Sackville-West & Tariq Ali https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7982908
April: British Queens (non-fiction) https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7983050
May: Jan Morris & R.F. Delderfield https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7983645
June: Time Travel & Alternate History https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7983771
July: Nadifa Mohamed & Tom Holt/KJ Parker https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7984345
August: Seafaring Stories https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7984569
September: School Stories/Campus Novels https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7985205
October: Monica Ali & Dennis Wheatley https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7985340
November: Pre-Tudor Era Works (before 1486) https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7985433
December: Malorie Blackman & E. M. Forster https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7985905
Wildcard: Doorstops https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#7985923

Here's the list of past authors and themes.

BAC 2015
January: Penelope Lively & Kazuo Ishiguro
February: Sarah Waters & Evelyn Waugh
March: Daphne du Maurier & China Miéville
April: Angela Carter & W. Somerset Maugham
May: Margaret Drabble & Martin Amis
June: Beryl Bainbridge & Anthony Burgess
July: Virginia Woolf & B.S. Johnson
August: Iris Murdoch & Graham Greene
September: Andrea Levy & Salman Rushdie
October: Helen Dunmore & David Mitchell
November: Muriel Spark & William Boyd
December: Hilary Mantel & P.G. Wodehouse
Wildcard: Bernice Rubens & Aldous Huxley

BAC 2016
January: Susan Hill & Barry Unsworth
February: Agatha Christie & William Dalrymple
March: Ali Smith & Thomas Hardy
April: George Eliot & Hanif Kureishi
May: Jane Gardam & Robert Goddard
June: Antonia Fraser & Joseph Conrad
July: Bernice Rubens & H.G. Wells
August: Diana Wynne-Jones & Ian McEwan
September: Doris Lessing & Laurie Lee
October: Kate Atkinson & William Golding
November: Rebecca West & Len Deighton
December: West Yorkshire writers
Wildcard: Rumer Godden and George Orwell

BAC 2017
January: Elizabeth Bowen & Brian Moore
February: Mary Stewart & Terry Pratchett
March: The Swinging Sixties
April: A. S. Byatt & Bruce Chatwin
May: Before Queen Victoria
June: Georgette Heyer & Simon Schama
July: D. E. Stevenson & Robert Louis Stevenson
August: Winifred Holtby & Robert Graves
September: The New Millennium
October: Jo Walton & Roald Dahl
November: The Poets Laureate
December: Elizabeth Gaskell & Neil Gaiman

BAC 2018
January: Debut Novels
February: The 1970s
March: Classic Thrillers
April: Folklore, Fables, and Legends
May: Queens of Crime
June: Travel Writing
July: The Angry Young Men
August: British Science Fiction
September: Historical Fiction
October: Comedic Novels
November: World War One
December: British Series
Wildcard: The Romantics

2019 British Isles Challenge
January: The Natural World
February: Pat Barker & Peter F. Hamilton
March: The Murderous Scots (Scottish Crime Novels)
April: Rosamond Lehmann and John Boyne
May: The Edwardian Era (1901-1913)
June: Nicola Barker & Wilkie Collins
July: Young Adult Fantasy Series
August: Anita Brookner & Jim Crace
September: Biography and Memoir
October: Rose Tremain & Louis de Bernières
November: The Jewish Contribution
December: Zadie Smith & Michael Morpurgo
Wildcard: Penelope Lively & Kazuo Ishiguro

2020 BAC
January: Jeanette Winterson & Graham Swift
February: The 1990s
March: Jane Austen & Walter Scott
April: Bernardine Evaristo & Caryl Phillips
May: Michael Moorcock, J. G. Ballard, & Brian Aldiss
June: Penelope Fitzgerald & Patrick Gale
July: Elly Griffiths & Winston Graham
August: The Brontë Sisters: Charlotte Brontë, Anne Brontë, & Emily Brontë
September: World War Two
October: Joanne Harris & George Orwell
November: Fay Weldon & John le Carré
December: The 2010s
Wildcard: Playwrights

2021 BAC
January: Children's Classics
February: LGBT+ History Month
March: Vaseem Khan & Eleanor Hibbert
April: Love is in the Air
May: V. S. Naipaul & Na'ima B. Robert
June: The Victorian Era (1837-1901)
July: Don't judge a book by its movie
August: Bernard Cornwell & Helen Oyeyemi
September: She Blinded Me with Science
October: Narrative Poetry
November: Tade Thompson & Elizabeth Taylor
December: Awards & Honors
Wildcard: Books off your shelves

2022 BAC
January: Children's Classics
February: Mary Renault & Timothy Mo
March: The Interwar Period (11 November 1918-1 September 1939)
April: Kamila Shamsie & Clive Barker
May: Comic Books/Graphic Novels & Audiobooks
June: Jackie Kay & E. F. Benson
July: The Georgian Era (1714-1837)
August: Espionage
September: Retellings, Continuations, and Non-Series Prequels & Sequels
October: Aminatta Forna & Lawrence Durrell
November: Arthurian Legend
December: Books about books
Wildcard I: Read the movies
Wildcard II: Rereads

Here's my rough draft for next year. Obviously it's still open to change.

January: Rosemary Sutcliff & Ian M. Banks or Adrian Tchaikovsky
February: Long story short: short stories and novellas
March: Tariq Ali & Vita Sackville-West
April: British Queens (non-fiction)
May: Jan Morris & Fred D'Aguiar
June: A Family Affair (authors related to each other)
July: Time travel & alternate history
August: Tom Holt & Monica Ali
September: School stories
October: Dennis Wheatley & Nadifa Mohamed or Leone Ross
November: Seafaring stories
December: Final and posthumous works or 2023 acquisitions
Wildcard: doorstops or controversial works

All the themes look interesting. The only author I'm familiar with is Sackville-West and I have several of her books on my TBR.

Really pleased to see a month devoted to short stories/novellas. I'm making "short" one of my personal challenges this year--to read at least one collection of short stories or essays each month.

For December, I'd be happy with either topic. Just a clarification--does a "2023 acquisition" have to be a book published in 2023?

For the Wildcard, either topic is OK--I think I slightly prefer doorstops.

>4 kac522: 2023 acquisitions means books purchased that year, not necessarily published in it.

>5 amanda4242: Good--that's easy--maybe even dangerous! :)

I see several things in the rough draft that I'd love to see stay! Rosemary Sutcliff, Vita Sackville-West, Monica Ali, short stories (maybe I can finish the Sherlock Holmes canon!), time travel & alternate history (Jo Walton!) , school stories (so many great choices!), seafaring stories (Patrick O'Brian!).

Wowzer, you are only in November and already pretty much fully formed!

I'm impressed.

>6 kac522: We were going to buy the books anyway; now we have an excuse to read them, too!

>7 cbl_tn: Jo Walton's Small Change trilogy was one of the series that inspired that theme.

>8 PaulCranswick: I keep a list of authors we haven't featured yet and add to it whenever I come across someone who sounds interesting, so at the end of the year I have a list of possibilities all set to go.

No need to change anything for this year, but here's a list of authors I don't see above to think about in the future:
18th & 19th century:
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Frances Burney
George Gissing
Anthony Trollope

20th century:
R. F. Delderfield
E. M. Forster
John Galsworthy
Margaret Kennedy
Barbara Pym
E. H. Young

ETA touchstones to authors' pages

>12 kac522: Thanks!

>9 amanda4242: roflmao

>12 kac522: Delderfield FTW. I've only read one, and doubt my silly local libraries would have others, but that might just be an excuse to purchase more.

>13 amanda4242: Just realized I listed 5 women and 5 men, so very fair, I think.

I was surprised that E. M. Forster was not on the list. Somehow I think we may have done Barbara Pym, but as an author in a list of many from a particular time period or theme. Not sure.

>14 ArlieS: Delderfield is an author who keeps getting stuck on my short list.

>15 kac522: I keep forgetting we haven't featured E. M. Forster because I've read him for several of the themes. I can do a bit of rearranging and fit him in next year if people are interested.

>15 kac522: & >16 amanda4242: That is astonishing that neither of us have featured Forster to date (EM or Margaret).

>17 PaulCranswick: I'm unlikely to feature Margaret Forster since I loathe Georgy Girl, but I'd be happy to make room for E. M. Forster.

>18 amanda4242: Hahaha Amanda. I have a few of her books, including your favourite, but haven't read any of them.

I would support a long overdue sampling of EM Forster.
What about authors who are better known initialized - RF Delderfield, HG Wells, JG Farrell, J.L. Carr, EM Delafield, AL Kennedy, MJ Hyland, CS Forester, GK Chesterton, EF Benson, PG Wodehouse and others

>19 PaulCranswick: I've already mentioned Delderfield; I'll second JG Farrell, EM Delafield, GK Chesterton, JL Carr. I think we already featured Wells and Wodehouse.

>20 kac522: Yes Kathy, I did see that. My point was that if Amanda made a challenge with that as the "theme" then it would open up all those authors some new ones and some old friends!

>21 PaulCranswick: Ah, now I get it!

>19 PaulCranswick: Initialized authors would give us a lot of excellent selections.

>12 kac522: I've read A Horseman Riding By (all three books) and enjoyed it thoroughly, but never picked up another Delderfield. Perhaps it's time. He was one of my mother's favorite authors, and I recall seeing To Serve Them All My Days on the table by her armchair.

>24 fuzzi: I've never read Delderfield, but have a couple of his books around here, so hoping that getting him in the rotation would give me the get up & go (read) that I need.

>25 kac522: well, I bit the bullet and found a near fine paperback copy of To Serve Them All My Days on Abebooks.

:sigh:

bump

bump

bump

It honk your suggestion looks good, Amanda. As usual, I’m more likely to participate the months where there is a theme rather than specific authors as it works better with my reading plans and TBR list (but then I fail spectacularly to participate at all this year, so…)

Looking forward to seeing what the final list ends up being and I’ll do my best to take part.

I'll start finalizing the list this weekend.

And our January authors are...Rosemary Sutcliff and Fred D'Aguiar!



Rosemary Sutcliff was born in Surrey in 1920; she spent her childhood on various naval bases due to her father being an officer in the Royal Navy. Sutcliff used a wheelchair for most of her life due to suffering from a type of juvenile arthritis. While her health and the family's travels interfered with her formal schooling, she learned many Celtic and Saxon legends from her mother.

Sutcliff graduated from art school and painted miniatures. She published her first novel, The Chronicles of Robin Hood, in 1950 and soon became a celebrated author of children's historical fiction. She went on to write dozens of books for both children and adults, including the Carnegie Medal-winning The Lantern Bearers. Sutcliff was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to children's literature. She died in 1992.

Selected works
The Eagle of the Ninth
The Shining Company
Outcast
The Mark of the Horse Lord
The Sword and the Circle
Sword Song
Frontier Wolf
Warrior Scarlet
Blood Feud
The Hound of Ulster
The Minstrel and the Dragon Pup
Bonnie Dundee
The Flowers of Adonis
Brother Dusty-Feet
Shifting Sands
We Lived in Drumfyvie
The Witch’s Brat
The Armourer's House
The Lantern Bearers

---

Poet, novelist, and playwright Fred D'Aguiar was born in London in 1960 to Guyanese parents; he lived in Guyana with his grandmother before returning to London in 1972. D'Aguiar trained as a psychiatric nurse before reading African and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury. He graduated from university in 1985, the year he published his first poetry collection, Mama Dot.

D'Aguiar moved to the United States in 1994 and taught English and creative writing at several universities. His writing has garnered a number of accolades, including a Whitbread First Novel Award for The Longest Memory.

Selected works
Mama Dot
British Subjects
The Longest Memory
Dear Future
Feeding the Ghosts
Bloodlines
An English Sampler
Bethany Bettany
Continental Shelf
Children of Paradise

>32 amanda4242: I have read her Arthurian trilogy but I will go and seek out The Eagle of the Ninth as it should be a good way to begin the year.

>33 PaulCranswick: I have two of Fred D'Aguiar's books on the shelves and will probably read Bloodlines.

February: Short Stories and Novellas

We'll be focusing on short forms for the shortest month.

Short stories
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard by J. G. Ballard
Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions by Neil Gaiman
The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Short Stories of Saki by Saki
Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell
Grand Union: Stories by Zadie Smith
The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
Illuminations by Alan Moore
Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Tales by Terry Pratchett

Novellas
The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
Ermyntrude and Esmeralda by Lytton Strachey
Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh
Farmer Giles of Ham by J. R. R. Tolkien
Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell
Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles by Jeanette Winterson
Once upon a time in the North by Philip Pullman
A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
Time Was by Ian McDonald
Cove by Cynan Jones
Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

>34 amanda4242: I truly have a lot of short story collections and I will have to have a think about which ones to look at.

>33 PaulCranswick: The Eagle of the Ninth is a favorite of mine.

Just over 3 years back I did a 7 book Sutcliff binge - the Dolphin Ring cycle and a couple of others. But there are a few left that I haven't read for decades.

I have The Eagle of the Ninth penciled in for January and Year of Plagues: A Memoir of 2020 as well. For February I will try to read volume II of Books of Blood.

I’ve read several of the short stories and novellas. I really liked Silver in the Wood.

A Month in the Country and The Minstrel and the Dragon Pup have been ordered.

>37 quondame: I hope to get through all of the Dolphin Ring cycle next year.

>38 Kristelh: I think the first volume of the Books of Blood is the strongest in the series, but there are some really good stories in the other volumes, too.

>39 m.belljackson: A Month in the Country is a beautiful story!

March: Vita Sackville-West & Tariq Ali



The only child of Victoria Sackville-West and Lionel Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville, Victoria Mary "Vita" Sackville-West was born in 1892 at Knole, her family's home in Kent. She was primarily educated by tutors, and wrote prolifically during her youth at Knole.

Sackville-West married Harold Nicolson in 1913; the couple had an open marriage, and they both had many same-sex lovers. Virginia Woolf was one of Vita's lovers and took her as the inspiration for Orlando.

A popular novelist in her day, Sackville-West also wrote poetry, biographies, travelogues, and books on gardens. She died in 1962.

Selected works
The Edwardians
All Passion Spent
The Land and the Garden
Challenge
A Note of Explanation
Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson
Pepita
Passenger to Teheran
Sissinghurst: Vita Sackville-West and the Creation of a Garden
The Dragon in Shallow Waters

---

Tariq Ali was born in 1943 in Lahore, Punjab, British India, now part of Pakistan. Ali became politically active as a teen; his parents decided he would be safer out of Pakistan and sent him to England, where he studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Exeter College, Oxford.

Ali is staunchly left-wing in his politics, and has long been a critic of US foreign policy. He has written extensively on politics and history, as well as writing novels and screenplays.

Selected works
Islam Quintet
The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity
Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq
Street-Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties
Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope
Trotsky for Beginners
The Nehrus and the Gandhis: An Indian Dynasty
The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad
Who's Afraid of Margaret Thatcher?: In Praise of Socialism

>41 amanda4242: I'll go with Tariq Ali's The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad.

It will be a fitting "companion" to just completed A PROMISED LAND.

Remembering my reactions to our President's less popular decisions
(Banks, Wall Street, Guantanamo, Wars...), it will be more than interesting
to see if Tariq Ali skewers or devastates the trump disaster that followed
or if Obama gets the blame.

>42 m.belljackson: The Obama Syndrome came out in 2010 so it's unlikely there's anything about Trump in it.

April: British Queens (non-fiction)


Matilda, Elizabeth I, Mary II, Victoria, Elizabeth II

A queen is more than the wife of a king. April is dedicated to non-fiction books about women who ruled Britain.

suggestions
Queen Emma and the Vikings: Power, Love, and Greed in 11th Century England by Harriet O'Brien
Queens Consort: England's Medieval Queens by Lisa Hilton
Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir
The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser
Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery by Eric Ives
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor
Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne by David Starkey
The life of Queen Henrietta Maria by Ida Ashworth Taylor
Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father's Crown by Maureen Waller
Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion by Anne Somerset
Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey
The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline by Flora Fraser
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother by William Shawcross

>43 amanda4242: Do any of his other books offer an update from the Obama years?

>45 m.belljackson: I haven't read him before so I really don't know.

May: Jan Morris & R. F. Delderfield



bio

Selected works
Pax Britannica Trilogy
Hav
In My Mind's Eye: A Thought Diary
Conundrum
Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere
Destinations
The Great Port: A Passage through New York
The Upstairs Donkey, and Other Stolen Stories
Ciao, Carpaccio!: An Infatuation
Coronation Everest
Venice
The Matter of Wales: Epic Views of a Small Country
Coast to Coast

---

bio

Selected works
To Serve Them All My Days
Swann Family Saga
A Horseman Riding By series
The Adventures of Ben Gunn
Stop at a Winner
Seven Men of Gascony
Too Few for Drums
Farewell the Tranquil Mind
Imperial Sunset: Fall of Napoleon 1813-14
Come Home, Charlie, and Face Them
Tales Out of School

I'm very much liking the selections so far. And while far too many British books don't make it into the local library system (US), if I plan ahead I might be able to inter-library loan a few not available at the closest libraries. Or buy some, but I'm trying to reduce the number of double-shelved books in my house, in part by only very rarely buying more.

>48 ArlieS: I'm glad you're liking the selections! I won't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure all of the authors I've selected have works available on Open Library, so you can check there if the library doesn't come through for you.

June: Time Travel & Alternate History



Not gonna lie: this theme was mostly inspired by my love of Doctor Who.

Time Travel
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
The Chronicles of St. Mary’s series by Jodi Taylor
The Dancers at the End of Time series by Michael Moorcock
Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier
A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones
Making History by Stephen Fry

Alternate History
Fatherland by Robert Harris
Small Change trilogy by Jo Walton
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman
Dominion by C. J. Sansom
The Alteration by Kingsley Amis
The Summer Isles by Ian R. MacLeod
Wolves Chronicles by Joan Aiken
Voyage by Stephen Baxter
The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville
The Proteus Operation by James P. Hogan
The Bloodline Feud by Charles Stross
Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero by Dan Abnett

Thanks for adding Delderfield...just the incentive I need to finally pick up To Serve Them All My Days (and in a long month, too!).

How about Outlander for Time Travel?

>52 m.belljackson: Gabaldon is American.

>53 amanda4242: Thanks for reminder - easy to forget she's not one with Sam and Graham.

>54 m.belljackson: No problem. I kept wanting to put The Doomsday Book on the list and had to keep reminding myself Connie Willis is American.

Ooh, >50 amanda4242: is going to be good for me. Plenty of books just on your list of suggestions that I’ve been meaning to read.

>56 PawsforThought: I have a lot of favorites that fit the theme.

July: Nadifa Mohamed & Tom Holt/KJ Parker



bio

Works
Black Mamba Boy
The Fortune Men
The Orchard of Lost Souls
As contributor
Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre
New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent
Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara

---

bio

Selected works
As Holt
J.W. Wells series
Who's Afraid of Beowulf?
Paint Your Dragon
Nothing But Blue Skies
The Walled Orchard
Expecting Someone Taller
Snow White and the Seven Samurai
Flying Dutch
Only Human
Alexander at the World's End
A Song for Nero
As Parker
Engineer Trilogy
The Fencer Trilogy
Scavenger Trilogy
The Two Of Swords series
Saloninus series
The Siege {Parker} series
Prosper's Demon series
The Long Game
Pulling the Wings Off Angels

Some great picks, Amanda.

Tariq Ali is an interesting one. I remember being in a meeting in the 1980s where he gave a very incendiary speech which was too much for most of the Labour members present, I can't remember what the subject of it was now but it must have been foreign policy related. He is an engaging and erudite fellow but pulls no punches whatsoever. I recall his fiction being historical based on events in Islam.

Pleased to see RF Delderfield too and I have several of his books unread.

>59 PaulCranswick: I picked Ali mostly because I thought his fiction looked interesting. I probably won't read his political writings but am interested to hear what others think of them.

August: Seafaring stories


Turner, The Battle of Trafalgar

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
--from John Masefield's "Sea-Fever"

Horatio Hornblower series by C. S. Forester
Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian
Bolitho series by Alexander Kent
The Pyrates by George MacDonald Fraser
The Lord Ramage Novels by Dudley Pope
Piratica by Tanith Lee
Richard Delancey series by C. Northcote Parkinson
Kydd series by Julian Stockwin
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes
Pirates! by Celia Rees

>61 amanda4242: Given their frequent jaunts into the Seas, how about a Byron, Shelley, and Keats
poetry book?

>62 m.belljackson: If they're writing about the sea, then certainly.

>63 amanda4242: Not always, but often enough, all three.

I'll collect quotes to add in August thread.

September: School stories/campus novels


Hogwarts crest

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
The Politeness of Princes and Other School Stories by P.G. Wodehouse
Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones
David Blaize by E.F. Benson
Chalet School series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton
Marlows series by Antonia Forest
Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling
Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes
A Fourth Form Friendship by Angela Brazil
To Sir, With Love by E. R. Braithwaite
Trebizon series by Anne Digby
Dimsie series by Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton
The Abbey Girls series by Elsie J. Oxenham
Aviary Hall series by Penelope Farmer
J C T Jennings series by Anthony Buckeridge
Evelyn Finds Herself by Josephine Elder
The Loom of Youth by Alec Waugh

>65 amanda4242: Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Finishing School should both work, right? I’ve been meaning to read the latter since reading the former last (I think) year.

>66 PawsforThought: Yep.

>63 amanda4242: As I was reading through the first 30 of Byron's 334 pages,
he mentions his strong dislike of both Wordsworth and Coleridge.

And, though I've found ten mentions of Seas and Oceans in the first 30 Byron pages,
would you think Rime of the Ancient Mariner might be the best Sea-Faring Poem ever?

Thank you for Harry Potter - at last two books from my save shelves -
abe.com might have thought I got an inheritance after ordering the first 7 books!

>68 m.belljackson: would you think Rime of the Ancient Mariner might be the best Sea-Faring Poem ever?

It's definitely the creepiest ever!

October: Monica Ali & Dennis Wheatley



bio

works
Brick Lane
Alentejo Blue
In the Kitchen
Untold Story
Love Marriage

---

bio

selected works
Duc de Richleau series
Roger Brook series
Gregory Sallust series
Julian Day series
The Haunting of Toby Jugg
They Found Atlantis
The Eunuch of Stamboul
Star of Ill-Omen
The Devil and all his Works
Stranger than Fiction
Saturdays with Bricks
The time has come : the memoirs of Dennis Wheatley
Murder Off Miami
Who Killed Robert Prentice?

>69 amanda4242: As you once recommended that I give Neil Gaiman one more chance with The Dream Hunters
- and now I read it over and over again, so in love with The Fox and The Monk -

I'll suggest that you give Hunt Emerson's version of The Rime of The Ancient Mariner your full attention!

November: Pre-Tudor Era Works (before 1486)



The Tudor Era began on 22 August 1485 when good King Richard III was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field by history's most vile liar, Henry Tudor.* I'll accept works dated before 1486 for this theme.

^{*Some may have a slightly different take on the start of the Tudor dynasty.}

Suggestions
Beowulf
Three Northumbrian Poems: Caedmon’s Hymn, Bede’s Death Song, and the Leiden Riddle
The Dream of the Rood
The Wanderer
Y Gododdin by Aneirin
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede
The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
The Mabinogion
The Journey Through Wales and The Description of Wales by Gerald of Wales
The Owl and the Nightingale
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Parlement of Foules by Geoffrey Chaucer
Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Pearl
Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle
Battle of Maldon and Other Old English Poems
Chester Mystery Plays
The Alliterative Morte Arthur
Confessio Amantis by John Gower
The Bruce by John Barbour
Piers Plowman by William Langland
King Alisaunder
The Gest of Robyn Hode https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/gest-robyn-hode-regularized
Sir Orfeo and Sir Launfal
Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory

>68 m.belljackson: & >69 amanda4242:

When I think of poems of the sea, John Masefield usually comes to mind. This is his famous poem Sea Fever


I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

>71 m.belljackson: I've been on the lookout for it since you mentioned sometime back. I may just breakdown and buy a copy!

>72 amanda4242: Interesting! That will be a test for sure.

>73 PaulCranswick: You may notice I quoted the last stanza in >61 amanda4242:.

>75 PaulCranswick: Simon Armitage recently did a new version of The Owl and the Nightingale, if that helps.

>76 amanda4242: I did indeed and since there are only three anyway!

>77 amanda4242: I noticed he had done so, Amanda and I have a few of his that could possibly suffice but I am overdue a bout with Chaucer, I guess. Or perhaps head off to Wales and look at some of their stories.

>78 PaulCranswick: Chaucer won't be a chore if you have a Modern English translation.

>71 m.belljackson: I found Emerson's Rime for $4.99 on kindle. I will be reading it tomorrow!

>79 amanda4242: Have fun with Hunt!

I ordered The Bruce to get a fuller backstory of Robert The Bruce
as read today from Sam and Graham in CLANLANDS.
(Great Scottish History with too much Whiskey)

>80 m.belljackson: I loved Men in Kilts! I have Clanlands on hold and should get it within another week.

December: Malorie Blackman & E. M. Forster



bio

Selected works
Noughts and Crosses series
Deadly Dare Mysteries series
Boys Don’t Cry
Pig Heart Boy
Jack Sweettooth
The Stuff of Nightmares
Dead Gorgeous
Thief!
Cloud Busting
Noble Conflict

---

bio

Selected Works
Where Angels Fear to Tread
A Room with a View
Howards End
A Passage to India
Maurice
The Life to Come and Other Stories
Two Cheers for Democracy
Aspects of the Novel

Wildcard: Doorstops



Everyone has a different definition of what constitutes a long book, so I'm going to say anything about 450 pages or more can count.

Imajica by Clive Barker
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Jerusalem by Alan Moore
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Once and Future King by T. H. White
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Tower of the King's Daughter by Chaz Brenchley
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

>83 amanda4242: Ooh, interesting. I’ll have to think about what I would read for this, but Bleak House is always a candidate.

I highly recommend Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - it’s one of the best books I’ve read in the past decade or so. Spent most of last summer (2021) hunched over the dining table reading (it was too heavy to read in bed).

Middlemarch saved my sanity two years ago as I listened to it on audiobook while laying jigsaws to distract myself from the news of autumn 2020.

I haven’t read Pillars of the Earth yet but previous Folletts were not for me. Maybe I just read the wrong ones.

>84 PawsforThought: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell sat unread on my shelf for over a decade before I finally decided to get through it; I have now read it twice and am looking forward to a third time!

The only Follett I've read is Pillars of the Earth, which I enjoyed.

>72 amanda4242: November is going to be fun, and I have several of these in my collection. Just don't expect me to read any of them in their original language ;-) I can manage Elizabethan English, but not much before that.

>86 ArlieS: I'll be reading in translation myself. I might be able to manage Chaucer given sufficient footnotes, but there's no way I could read most of those in the original!

>47 amanda4242: I think I posted this before, but I read and loved the A Horseman Riding By series.

I have ordered a copy of To Serve Them All My Days. It was one of my mother's favorites.

>61 amanda4242: I'd HIGHLY recommend Atlantic Fury by Hammond Innes and HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean.

>83 amanda4242: Middlemarch took me a long time to read, but not because it wasn't good...it was SO GOOD I had to slow down to read it.

>88 fuzzi: I picked up To Serve Them All My Days off the giveaway shelf at the library years ago and have yet to read it. Next year will be the year!

>89 fuzzi: Middlemarch is a book to be savored.

Nicola Griffith's Arthurian novella Spear is on sale for $2.99 today. It can fit in for this year's Arthurian theme or be held over for next year's short stories and novellas theme.

The 2023 BAC is up!

General thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/346901
Wildcard: https://www.librarything.com/topic/346903
January: https://www.librarything.com/topic/346902

The Eagle of the Ninth arrived last night so I am all set and looking forward.

>92 amanda4242: thank you!