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Source: (consider it) Thread: Authors you would like to meet
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061

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OMG, Sarasa. And she is gone -- Jones was one of those authors who should have lived forever, and write a book a year.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Pigwidgeon

Ship's Owl
# 10192

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quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
Anyone fancy a tête-à-tête with the 2016 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature? I did not see that one coming.

I'd love to! I did see him in person several years ago, but would love to join your dinner party with him.

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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf

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The5thMary
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# 12953

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Dead: The late Father Andrew M. Greeley. I hope he wouldn't talk about women's breasts a lot, though. Gets tedious.

Alive: Daryl Gregory who wrote one of my favorite books thus far in my 49 years on this planet, "Afterparty". Excellent, excellent book.

I am coming off some medicinal marijuana at the moment and can barely spell or concentrate on stringing the proper words and letters together. I'm off for a long sleep.

I'm sure I will have many other authors to share, once I've "sobered" up.

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God gave me my face but She let me pick my nose.

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Sandemaniac
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# 12829

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I'd go for Diana Wynne-Jones (spelling?), mostly because her grandparents lived in my parent's village, but I'm buggered if I can work out who they were.

AG

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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869

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ArachnidinElmet
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# 17346

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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Le Guin and Gaiman are alive, and I have met them -- they are lovely people.

As are Ellis and Armitage. A friend met Simon Armitage a couple of times, he's local-ish and often does readings; she thought very highly of him.

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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka

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Firenze

Ordinary decent pagan
# 619

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quote:
Originally posted by Sarasa:
and also bring Emily Eden . Her two novels are among my favourite comfort reads,

I've downloaded The Semi Detached House. So far it seems mainly about mocking rich, vulgar Jews. But perhaps it picks up later.
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Sparrow
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# 2458

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I wish I'd met Terry Pratchett. From reading his output, he seems to have had an almost identical education to mine!

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For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life,nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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mark_in_manchester

not waving, but...
# 15978

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Dafyd wrote:

quote:
I'd like to invite Marilynn Robinson
Me too - but having read some of her non-fiction, I know that I need more time to enjoy it than it would take her to think it / say it. So maybe you'd allow me to take an audio feed from the dinner party and digest it off-line. I could be an unseen guest a little like the DDR surveillance officer in 'The Lives of Others'.

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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)

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Brenda Clough
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# 18061

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This kind of thought always raises up caveats in my mind. There has to be an app or a feature, to get us past language barriers, for instance. Would we understand Shakespeare, without it? Certainly you would need it to get anything out of a meeting with Martin Luther or Socrates (both great dinner companions by all report).

And while we're at it the app should get us past racial and cultural barriers. There are too many authors of the past, who would not sit at table with a person of different race or gender or even nationality. Dickens and Trollope toured America, but didn't like Americans (insufficiently deferential).

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Sipech
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# 16870

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Some of the tensions/prejudices might serve up some interesting conversations. Imagine inviting Hitler along to be confronted by the likes of Gore Vidal, Martin Luther King Jr and Maya Angelou.

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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile

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venbede
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# 16669

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What Dickens didn't like about Americans was their hypocritical racism when going on about freedom.

Anthony Trollope's mother, Fanny, wrote a book about Americans. I don't think her son did,

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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

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Brenda Clough
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# 18061

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Trollope is on record, in his letters, complaining about how Americans served him.

I wrote a book once about Lawrence 'Titus' Oates, and to that end read everything extant about him, both his own writings and those of others. I became uneasily aware than an Edwardian gentleman would be unlikely to approve of me (wrong race, wrong nationality, wrong gender). And I had a dream.

In my dream he looked as he does in the photo on the Wikipedia page. All he did was stare at me; no conversation was exchanged. But I knew, as one does, that this was the true man -- the historical person, not the fictional construct or the fellow in the history books. And I knew that he did not want me to write about him. If I continued, I would have to answer for it some day. He would meet me at the Pearly Gates, a riding crop in hand. I woke up with quite a nasty start.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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ArachnidinElmet
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# 17346

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Not sure about erasing cultural differences, but for languages maybe we should be using Babel Fish ?

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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka

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Egeria
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P.G. Wodehouse.
Patrick O'Brian.

And an author I've always thought would be a great dinner companion, especially for a dinner that goes on late into the evening: Herodotus! I imagine he would be so entertaining (I recommend the Histories to students as beach reading). And to make the conversation flow more easily (and to ask the man questions I wouldn't have thought of), some modern scholar, such as the late J.K. "Jock" Anderson. [Votive]

I also want to meet Manetho (early third century BC), author of the Aegyptiaca , whose dynastic outline we still use today, but whose work survives only in summaries made by later historians. Where did he do his research? What king-lists did he consult? What about the stories that didn't make it into the fragments preserved today? How accurate are those summaries? I would be happy to buy him all the bread and beer, beef and fowl, that he desires!

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"Sound bodies lined / with a sound mind / do here pursue with might / grace, honor, praise, delight."--Rabelais

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Pigwidgeon

Ship's Owl
# 10192

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quote:
Originally posted by Egeria:
P.G. Wodehouse...

How could I have forgotten Plum?

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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf

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venbede
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# 16669

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I read a biography of Plum which reckoned he was not very brilliant as a conversationalist or socialite and preferred a quiet life in his own home.

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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

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venbede
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# 16669

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I love Elizabeth David's grande dame bitchiness in her journalism, but I would be wary of her company (although she did get on with gay men).

But I would love, love, love to help Jane Grigson prepare a meal and then sit down to eat it with her and friends. She comes over as really nice. And when she criticises dubious attitudes to food, it is more in sorrow than in anger.

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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

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Bishops Finger
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# 5430

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Both dead, alas, but:

1. Wilkie Collins, younger contemporary and friend of Dickens. Collins invented wonderful devices for murdering his characters, and actually built at least one...to see if it would work [Eek!]

2. Jerome K. Jerome, a man with a very dry and witty approach to life, but who (in his late 50s) served as an ambulance driver in WW1.

Living?

J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter)
2. Peter Robinson (Chief Inspector Banks)

Ian J.

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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)

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Brenda Clough
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# 18061

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quote:
Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
Both dead, alas, but:

1. Wilkie Collins, younger contemporary and friend of Dickens. Collins invented wonderful devices for murdering his characters, and actually built at least one...to see if it would work [Eek!]


Goodness! Where, when? Details!

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Bishops Finger
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# 5430

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Ah....my apologies.....I've given incorrect information, having failed to check my sources beforehand.

In his labyrinthine and mysterious melodrama Armadale, Collins does indeed have one of the characters attempt to murder another by introducing poison gas into a sealed bedroom.

The author and a friend saw something similar attempted on a dog 'for the edification of tourists' whilst on a visit to the Grotto di Cane near Naples in 1853. Collins recorded in a letter to his brother that he had, out of compassion, had the experiment cut short before the dog died.

William Wilkie Collins (1834-1897) is best known for The Moonstone and The Woman in White , but wrote numerous other novels, some of which are easier to read than others. Well worth the attempt, though, IMNSHO.

Ian J.

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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)

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Bishops Finger
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# 5430

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Sorry to double-post...Wilkie Collins' dates are 1824-1889, not as I quoted above.

Another of his novels - Jezebel's Daughter - also includes murder by poison (potions rather than gas).

Ian J.

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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)

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Brenda Clough
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# 18061

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I have Armadale on my Ipad, also Salummbo by Gustave Flaubert, but haven't had time to read either.

Assuming one could get past the language/cultural barriers, I would love to talk to John (of Revelations). That's a man with one crazy imagination.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Bishops Finger
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# 5430

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I think you might need to eat magic mushrooms (or something) to converse with St. John!

Another author I'd like to have met is H. P. Lovecraft (IIRC someone else mentioned him upthread). Quite why I seem to like authors who dispose of their victims in rather ghastly and eldritch (a good Lovecraftian word) ways, I know not...

Ian J.

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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)

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Brenda Clough
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# 18061

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It is a mistake to know too much about authors; Lovecraft was like many of his period an anti-Semite. Many writers are very unsatisfactory people in real life.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Albertus
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# 13356

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Of course, because you'd like to meet someone doesn't necessarily mean you think you'd like them as a person. I'd have been very interested to meet Hitler and Stalin (both of whom I suppose do count as authors of a kind), but probably just the once would be enough. Also, though not a comparable person, Barbara Cartland, simply because I heard her being interviewed on the radio and she came across as so gloriously and battily and self-confidently larger than life.

[ 18. October 2016, 15:21: Message edited by: Albertus ]

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Brenda Clough
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# 18061

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Or Philip of Macedon. They excavated his party service in Greece, and he seems to have been quite the kegger.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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andras
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# 2065

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Robertson Davies for starters; he taught me to write (not literally, but what a wonderful exemplar he was). Read The Manticore if you don't know how good he is!

Then Ursula le Guin, Plum, Trollope, Swift, Virgil, and the unknown author of Gawain. Should be quite a bash!

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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass

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Schroedinger's cat

Ship's cool cat
# 64

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H.G Wells, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. That would be my dinner party.

I would expect some arguments.

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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.

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Bishops Finger
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# 5430

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Brenda, HPL was indeed a racist of his time. So too were Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers - I daresay there are/were many others.

I think I'd enjoy discussing the Great Old Ones with HPL over dinner, though!

Ian J.

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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)

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Brenda Clough
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# 18061

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You can meet Le Guin any time -- she lives in Oregon, although she is pretty frail now. Yet another of those writers who should live forever.

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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page

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Sandemaniac
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# 12829

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I'd quite fancy getting Gildas to the table, if only to ask him why the hell he didn't get any real history in,instead of just having a rant.

AG

[ 18. October 2016, 19:03: Message edited by: Sandemaniac ]

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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869

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The Phantom Flan Flinger
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# 8891

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Tea & cake with Marian Keyes would be fun [Smile]

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http://www.faith-hope-and-confusion.com/

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Chorister

Completely Frocked
# 473

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Stephen Leacock. But they'd better not serve soup at this dinner party, or there'd be way too much spluttering!

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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.

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Welease Woderwick

Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424

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Joshua Slocum would have some amazing tales to tell.

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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details

What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?

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Eigon
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# 4917

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I'm told Alan Garner tends to hide from visitors when his house is open to the public, but if you could get him to a dinner table I bet he'd be a fascinating guest.
And while I'm thinking of children's authors, I'd like to have Rosemary Sutcliff, Henry Treece and Geoffrey Trease at the same table to compare notes on children's historical fiction! Geoffrey Trease used to live in Malvern and was reputed to be quite a gentleman - and I once met a man who knew Henry Treece, who told me that he had been diagnosed with a weak heart - so he'd given up his job, packed his family into an old car, and careered around Europe for a year!

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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.

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Teekeey Misha
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# 18604

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Who would I invite to my dinner party of the vanities?
  • George Orwell and Josef Conrad are the authors of my three favourite books, so they're a must.
  • Dornford Yates, because I own all his works (almost each of them in first edition, because I am that sad person about whom you've heard.)
  • Dorothy L. Sayers, because I do like a good murder mystery and DLS is Agatha Christie with brains.
  • Graham Greene (or anyone who's written decent spy stories/thrillers - except Dan Brown and Ian Fleming, neither of whom the butler at Misha Dvorets would allow over the threshold.)
  • Anthony Hope, because one day I will be offered the throne of a Balkan kingdom.
  • Someone classical but I'd limit myself to one and I can't decide if I'd prefer Tacitus, Livy or Seutonius. (I think Pliny would be a bit of a bore/boor.)
  • Anthony Flew, just because.
  • Dostoyevsky, because I'd like a bit of Russian input.
  • Some latter day historian - Mary Beard is, sadly, out because I've already done classicals and I wouldn't want her hogging my other classical guest, so any of the other decent modern historians who isn't David Starkey (whom I'm sure I'd have to kill before the soup was cleared.) Maybe that Diarmaid MacCulloch because I enjoyed his "Cranmer" and he's good on the telly.
I can only fit nine other people round the dining table. Now, if it were to be a garden party, I could invite dozens of authors I'd love to meet; I might want to meet some of them only fleetingly, perhaps just long enough to say "That book stank - what were you thinking..?" but there are others I'd lock in the library and keep here to talk to ad saecula saeculorum.

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Misha
Don't assume I don't care; sometimes I just can't be bothered to put you right.

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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I met the children's poet Wes Magee - he asked me out!!

In fact he invited me to his cottage stay with him. I acted ignorant and gently put him off!

[Eek!] [Hot and Hormonal]

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Curiosity killed ...

Ship's Mug
# 11770

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I met Geoffrey Trease; he came to my school to talk about his books and I suspect I got to show him around, because I remember talking to him individually and finding it awkward because I hadn't read any of his books.

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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat

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leo
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# 1458

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quote:
Originally posted by Teekeey Misha:
Diarmaid MacCulloch because I enjoyed his "Cranmer" and he's good on the telly.

He's always good fun.

(Code fix)

[ 31. October 2016, 14:50: Message edited by: Firenze ]

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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com

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jacobsen

seeker
# 14998

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I've no idea what the mix would be like, but Jane Austen, if we could get her to unbutton, J.K.Rowling, Jane Duncan (Scottish author of adult and children's fiction) and a now probably forgotten writer of children's fantasy/historical fiction, Marjorie Phillips. Also Ursula Le Guin.

The common factor for me is their humanity, which shines through their writing, and the affection they show for their characters.

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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.

Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009  |  IP: Logged
Firenze

Ordinary decent pagan
# 619

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Apropos of nothing much: in Czech they add the female suffix to foreign names. So there she's J K Rowlingova.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Huia
Shipmate
# 3473

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Thanks Firenze - it gave me a giggle,

Another one wanting to meet Ursula Le Guin. I'd also like to meet Sophie Hannah to ask her to stop writing crap stories about Poirot and go back to writing her own brilliant murders.

Does anyone else loathe and detest "sequels" of favourite authors written by other people?

Huia

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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.

Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

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quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
Does anyone else loathe and detest "sequels" of favourite authors written by other people?

YES!!!

Moo

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See you later, alligator.

Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Welease Woderwick

Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424

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Me too.

I love Eoin Colfer but his Douglas Adams spin-off leaves me cold.

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Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details

What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?

Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005  |  IP: Logged
jacobsen

seeker
# 14998

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On the other hand, the Gill Paton Walsh Whimsey continuations are very good. She has managed to bring them up to post WW2 and a second generation with a good deal of panache. But I'll be sorry when the Dowager Duchess pops it.

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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.

Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009  |  IP: Logged
Firenze

Ordinary decent pagan
# 619

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Nevertheless, they are All Wrong. There's an underlying modernity about their attitudes that makes me feel they are not really an aristocrat with an Edwardian childhood and a middle class 1930s bluestocking, but a couple of Guardian-reading sociologists in disguise.

I see there are also continuations of the Campion canon. Half a page was enough to convince me those were massively cloth-eared.

Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
jacobsen

seeker
# 14998

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But the Whimsey continuations feature people who have been through two world wars and both travelled extensively, and are, if children of their time, aware that times are changing. Harriet was, after all, in with the 'artistic' crowd as well as the academic one, and Peter was blown up in WW1 and experienced hunger, cold and extreme danger in WW2. There is also a good deal of discussion about the old, indulged,leisured life which is acknowledged to be a thing of the past.

One of the threads running through the continuations is the adaptation Harriet makes, first to combining work and wealth, and then to the demands of wartime conditions, followed by the post war changes. There is an ongoing comparison of the old states of things with the new.

If Harriet seems to have a sociological stance on some subjects, it's worth bearing in mind that she has known real poverty -arranging meals on fourpence a day, as she comments in The Attenbury Emeralds. And Peter would not be the only well-born chap who was uncomfortable with the idea of inherited privilege.

Heavens, I can feel an essay coming on. [Big Grin]

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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.

Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009  |  IP: Logged
Curiosity killed ...

Ship's Mug
# 11770

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Those Jill Paton Walsh continuations of the Wimsey genre are still all wrong. (I have/had relatives who went through all that and the whole thing jars. My grandfather was blown up in WW1 and came back a Colonel.)

She's another one I wish would go back to writing more Imogen Quy books - her own detective heroine.

Can we want to meet people to persuade them not to continue writing poor imitations?

[ 01. November 2016, 18:57: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]

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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat

Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006  |  IP: Logged
jedijudy

Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333

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quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Apropos of nothing much: in Czech they add the female suffix to foreign names. So there she's J K Rowlingova.

Quotes file!
[Smile]

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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.

Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Tubbs

Miss Congeniality
# 440

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quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Nevertheless, they are All Wrong. There's an underlying modernity about their attitudes that makes me feel they are not really an aristocrat with an Edwardian childhood and a middle class 1930s bluestocking, but a couple of Guardian-reading sociologists in disguise.

I see there are also continuations of the Campion canon. Half a page was enough to convince me those were massively cloth-eared.

I think that’s the problem. (I read way too much Golden Age Crime fiction. Yay for reissues!)

Paton Walsh does an excellent job, there are a few things that jar with the attitudes expressed in the Sayers books and the cultural commentary is off. However good the historical research and however familiar you are with the characters, you wear your own set of cultural blinkers. And Paton Walsh’s aren’t the same as Sayers.

However, if you treat the books as standalones with a new set of characters, they are really good. I haven’t bothered with other redo’s though.

The fact that Paton Walsh’s own work is difficult to get is really annoying. Paton Walsh seems rather sniffy about her children’s books, but I really liked them. I’d love an e-book version of Parcel of Patterns. My old copy got lost several house moves ago.

Tubbs

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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am

Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged



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