Recommend A Book to a GS friend | Page 4 | Golden Skate

Recommend A Book to a GS friend

Alba

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 26, 2014
By the way, have you seen the BBC adaptation Barchester Chronicles?

I like that BBC adaptation. Never read the books though.


Alba, just for you, maybe I'll give that a try one of these days. No promises, though... :slink:

I used this trick when at school. We had to read War&Peace there, but at that time I was too young and lazy.
I thought no way I'm going to read the whole damn book. There were 4 volumes. :slink: :laugh:

Lucky me the volumes were divided in such a way that it made sense to read the 1rst, 3rd and the second half of the 4rth book.
So basically only the Peace part and you could understand the whole story. :biggrin:
I loved it so much though, so I decided a while later to read the whole book.
Now it's in my top fav. book list. :)
 

LRK

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
I like that BBC adaptation. Never read the books though.

It's based off the first two books in the series - "The Warden" and "Barchester Towers". The first book is about Mr Harding's dilemma re his post at Hiram's Hospital. The second book is where Mrs Proudie, Mr Slope and that whole bunch make their appearance. The drama is very faithful to the books, actually.
 

skatedreamer

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Feb 18, 2014
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My most favourite - and they are among my most favourite books overall as well - are "The Warden", "Barchester Towers" and "The Last Chronicle of Barset".

By the way, have you seen the BBC adaptation Barchester Chronicles? If not, I will only mention that Alan Rickman makes a marvellous Mr Slope. :)

Oh, and there's a '70s adaptation of The Pallisers - and, in the adaptation of the last book, Anthony Andrews plays Lord Silverbridge, and Jeremy Irons his friend Frank... Trevelyan, I believe? (you'll know who I mean if I've misrememberd, though, I'm sure! :) )

Other favourites include "Framley Parsonage", "Doctor Thorne" of the Barchester set, and then also "The Kellys and O'Kellys", "Rachel Ray", "Lady Anna", "He Knew He was Right", "Ayala's Angel", "The Belton Estate"...

The BBC version of Barchester was the thing that got me started on Trollope. I actually own The Pallisers DVDs but haven't watched them in a long time; will have to go back & look for Andrews/Irons. And wasn't Susan Hampshire lovely as Lady Glen?

David Suchet was mesmerizing in the BBC The Way We Live Nowfrom 5-6 years ago. The story knocked me sideways because the financial panic in the book was an almost exact parallel to the 2008 meltdown in the US. With updated costumes it could just as easily have been about AIG, Lehman Brothers et al.
 

LRK

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
The BBC version of Barchester was the thing that got me started on Trollope. I actually own The Pallisers DVDs but haven't watched them in a long time; will have to go back & look for Andrews/Irons. And wasn't Susan Hampshire lovely as Lady Glen?

David Suchet was mesmerizing in the BBC He Knew He Was Right from 5-6 years ago. The story knocked me sideways because the financial panic in the book was an almost exact parallel to the 2008 meltdown in the US. With updated costumes it could just as easily have been about AIG, Lehman Brothers et al.

I think you mean The Way We Live Now. There's an adaptation of He Knew He was Right, as well, though, but I haven't seen it yet. I have taped it, and am really looking forward to it... (We're working our way through what I taped in... 2005 at the moment. Story of my life - being behindhand with everything! Though there is almost something oddly... relaxing in being so very far behind - one stops worrying about it. ;) )

I think both "Little Dorrit" and "The Way We Live Now" were inspired by the same real event/person? Well, "nothing new under the sun", and everything... alas, but we people never really learn, do we? I mean, people in the main - individuals of course can, and, I hope, do.
 

skatedreamer

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Feb 18, 2014
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I think you mean The Way We Live Now. There's an adaptation of He Knew He was Right, as well, though, but I haven't seen it yet. I have taped it, and am really looking forward to it... (We're working our way through what I taped in... 2005 at the moment. Story of my life - being behindhand with everything! Though there is almost something oddly... relaxing in being so very far behind - one stops worrying about it. ;) )

I think both "Little Dorrit" and "The Way We Live Now" were inspired by the same real event/person? Well, "nothing new under the sun", and everything... alas, but we people never really learn, do we? I mean, people in the main - individuals of course can, and, I hope, do.

thanks; I stand corrected! (hides in embarrassment)

going back to edit the post...
 

Alba

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 26, 2014
Suchet was great as Augustus Melmotte. :yes:
Shirley Henderson as Marie Melmotte, his daughter, was hilarious though. :laugh:
 

skatedreamer

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Feb 18, 2014
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2 Victorian mystery masterpieces, both by Willkie Collins, a contemporary and friend of Dickens:

The Moonstone

The Woman in White
 

LRK

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
Seconded. I'd also add "No Name".

And if we are talking Victorian (as it was called then) Sensation Fiction "Lady Audley's Secret" by Mary Elizabeth Braddon is also worth giving a try. (The recent-ish dramatisation had good actors and pretty dresses - but they messed up the characters and the story. I was horribly disappointed in it.)
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I enjoyed The Moonstone very much. Extravagant and inventive; is it considered the first detective novel? I should reread it; it's been awhile.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
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Jul 26, 2003
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It must be Victorian revisit month. :) I just reread Kidnapped, which I loved as a child, and am starting its sequel, Catriona. It is a joy to read these books in ebook format, because the Scots words are linked to definitions, and I can change my dictionary to UK English. If truly stumped, I can hit the More box and look up references to olde tyme things I don't recognize. I will probably follow up with The Black Arrow, also by Stevenson, just because I loved it when I was 12. I hope I can lay my hands on the same edition I read then with the N.B. Wyeth illustrstions.
 

skatedreamer

Medalist
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Feb 18, 2014
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I enjoyed The Moonstone very much. Extravagant and inventive; is it considered the first detective novel? I should reread it; it's been awhile.

I think it's largely considered to be the first detective novel, at least in English. Even if it isn't, IMO the Sergeant Cuff character is one of the most fascinating detectives ever created.

Re: The Woman in White, Gladstone is supposed to have cancelled theater plans just so he could finish it!
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I think it's largely considered to be the first detective novel, at least in English. Even if it isn't, IMO the Sergeant Cuff character is one of the most fascinating detectives ever created.

Re: The Woman in White, Gladstone is supposed to have cancelled theater plans just so he could finish it!

That's so cool about Gladstone.

I was going to suggest that one might have to take into account the Japanese short story "Rashomon," but I just checked, and apparently it was written in 1915, though it's based on an ancient Noh play. Some memory makes me feel that there's a companion story, "In a Grove," about the same event, which I also read (both in translation), but I can't find an indication of this in a quick look. Anyway, Wilkie Collins predates them both.
 

LRK

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
That's so cool about Gladstone.

I was going to suggest that one might have to take into account the Japanese short story "Rashomon," but I just checked, and apparently it was written in 1915, though it's based on an ancient Noh play. Some memory makes me feel that there's a companion story, "In a Grove," about the same event, which I also read (both in translation), but I can't find an indication of this in a quick look. Anyway, Wilkie Collins predates them both.

If you are talking detective short stories however, then you must take into account Edgar Allan Poe...
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
If you are talking detective short stories however, then you must take into account Edgar Allan Poe...

Ooh, of course! I wasn't thinking. I actually like Poe's detective stories better than his horror stories. (Mainly because I don't like horror; I'm such a chicken.)
 

Alba

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 26, 2014
I love Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories and Georges Simenon's Maigret. :yes:

They are both popular and loved in Italy.

The Italian televison (RAI) made the adaption for both. Maigrets from 1964 up to 1972 and Gino Cervi (such a great actor) played the character of Maigret. Simenon himself considered Cervi's interpretation of the character to be possibly the best.

Nero Wolfe was produced by RAI as well, 10 TV movies, from February 1969 to February 1971.
Tino Buazzelli was fantastic as Wolfe and for me tv series is way better than the USA one of 2000. I have not seen the rest though.

Rex Stout's biographer John McAleer wrote that "The name Nero Wolfe has magic in Italy".
Funny enough, RAI paid Stout 80,000 USD for the rights to produce 12 Nero Wolfe stories, and according to McAleer: "He agreed only because he would never see them." :laugh:

I have all the videos (all books as well) and often watch them today. :)
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I'm glad there was a good adaptation of Nero Wolfe somewhere in the world, Alba!

I thought of an obscure book that I have enjoyed often since I first read it, Agnes De Mille's Dance to the Piper.. De Mille was a major choreographer. Her works include Aaron Copland's Rodeo and the "Out of My Dreams" dance in the musical Oklahoma. She knew everyone in the dance world of the time, including Antony Tudor and Martha Graham. Her writing is vivid and informative--a great documentary of the world of ballet/modern dance of the middle of the twentieth century. She was also Cecil B. De Mille's niece, so she has some interesting insights into early Hollywood. I'm sorry this book isn't still in print, but maybe there are some copies in big libraries.
 

skatedreamer

Medalist
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Feb 18, 2014
Country
United-States
After having recommended so many Victorians, wanted to mention something written a bit more recently. ;) Today's offering: The Voice at the Back Door by Elizabeth Spencer.

I had never heard of Spencer prior to running across the review linked below in Slate, an e-zine. What caught my eye was the reviewer's comment that he preferred Back Door to To Kill a Mockingbird. Since Mockingbird is on my all-time personal hit parade, I was intrigued (albeit somewhat incredulous, too :)).

Anyway, Spencer was a contemporary of Harper Lee's and came from a similar Southern background. In 1957, she received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for Back Door but didn't win. Lee, of course, did win the Pulitzer for Mockingbird in 1961. Both books deal with the same subject matter -- racial relations in the deep South prior to the Civil Rights movement. (I'm having trouble pinpointing the time period for Back Door :confused:, but it feels like it takes place a bit later than Mockingbird.)

As the Slate reviewer says, Back Door is "edgier and more ambivalent" than Mockingbird. Its characters are vivid, well-drawn and compelling, but they aren't as easily likable as Harper Lee's. Spencer's book lacks the charm and affectionate nostalgia of Mockingbird. She's telling an extraordinary story, but won't make you feel all warm and fuzzy. Instead, think bracing, astringent, and no-nonsense.

This isn't a criticism, though -- just a comparison. Although I'm not too far along in it yet, my gut tells me that it's going to be very rewarding. Definitely worth a read! And if you decide to pick it up, I'd love to "hear" your thoughts about it.



http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/..._of_short_stories_starting_over_reviewed.html
 

humbaba

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt. Amazon kept pushing this novel at me every time I opened my Kindle. Finally, that picture of the little bird chained to its perch got to me and I bought the book. I'm so glad I did. It's one of my favorite novels of all time. This book is alternately heart wrenching, clever, funny and nerve wracking. I also learned something about the appreciation of fine art and beautiful things. The final vision is a dark one, but this is still one of the books I'd want with me if I were marooned on an island.

Also, I would be very happy if I could convince just one person to read Charlotte Bronte's novel VILLETTE. Bronte is so identified with JANE EYRE that most people don't seem to realize she wrote anything else. Anyway, VILLETE is a very wonderful, very looooong book and an interesting exploration of what it meant to be a creative, artistic woman in the Victorian era.
 
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