ENGLISH BOOKS
YES. BUT, I ACTUALLY MEAN BOOKS BY ENGLISH AUTHORS.
I was talking to a really good friend today and we were discussing books.
My friend is amazing! She's read classics like Charles Dickens 'A Tale of Two Cities'.
Really impressive, hauntingly beautiful tales that we still marvel at today.
And, maybe, you'll disagree with me, but I wouldn't curl up in my sofa. and read 'Oliver Twist'. I'll sit at a hard wooden desk with a lamp, highlighters, and pens, and a tiny notepad ready to reach for those elusive gems that make Dickens' work a masterpiece.
Today, I want to talk about English literature for the purposes of pleasure.
I don't know if I'm reaching too far back into the past, but who remembers Enid Blyton?
I remember the first time I met a clown, or went to a traveling circus, or defeated a criminal.
I didn't like cartoons and movies. No, they stifled my imagination. I wanted to read and picture things for myself.
I was a member of the Famous Five.
During that time I badgered my mum to buy me soft, freshly- baked slices of bread and even more jars of golden brown honey to drizzle-more like slather- all over them. After all, if my fellow Fivers were eating jam and honey sandwiches and defeating dog-thieves and break-in-and-enterers, why couldn't I do that right from wherever I was?
Now, I had a weird relationship with 'black magic' but my first healthy relationship with magic came as a result of reading: 'The Wishing Chair and Other Stories", The Magic Bicycle', "Bicycle Magic", 'The MagicBrush' and many more.
I was a member of the 'Secret Seven', I had braved the 'Island of Adventure', 'The Castle of Adventure' and 'The Valley of Adventure'.
I was a really good little girl—ask my mum. But I loved the Naughtiest Girl Series.
And, I started dreaming of boarding schools with midnight feasts and picturesque landscapes and charming personalities, right in my 'First Term at Mallory Towers' with friends like Darrell Rivers, Sally Hope, Mary-Lou, Alicia Johns, Gwendoline Mary Lacey, and teachers like Miss Potts and Miss Grayling.
What about St Clare's, my older audience may ask? Interestingly, as I told my really fun über cool aunt yesterday, I guess the St Clare's series came before my time—I'm not that old, you know(cue Michelle Obama).
But you know what? I'm really really really looking forward to reading St Clare's and if anyone can get them to me, I'll be ecstatic.
I'm craving a bite of the decadent sweetness of my childhood. And I'll take it even if I have to get it from a book series written by a woman who was born on August 11, 1897, and died on November 28, 1968.
I'll be doing Roald Dahl next. Please include your topic suggestions and comments. I live for them.