PC Reading List

My blog is worth $9,032.64.
How much is your blog worth?

It's actually quite normal, I think.  If you are away from home, food that tastes like home is just one of those things you are bound to miss.  That's why gift baskets from Gourmet Gift Baskets can be such a great gift idea. Take the Texas Gift Basket, for instance. You'll get all the favorites that any red-blooded Texan will enjoy most, and you can have it delivered to them wherever they are as the roam away from home, all in a nice attractive package.  Just think how great that will make your traveling Texans feel, to get a taste of home while they are away from their beloved Lone Star State!

And it isn't just Texans who are well taken care of. There are special gift baskets for chocolate lovers, for men, for women, Italian gift baskets, stuff for those with a sweet tooth... and the list could go on and on. Stop by and visit Gourmet Gift Baskets today. I think you'll find the perfect gift for any occasion there.

If you aren't making money on your blog yet, I have a question for you.....

Sign up  on the form below, and get started today.  Don't worry... it's easy!

So what do you think about this?  Is the newspaper right to play spoiler?

For me, I hate it when someone tells me the end of a story or book.  And, I was amused in a sort of shake-your-head-and-shrug way when a friend asked me to tell her the end of the Harry Potter book before she decided to read it.  

But, that said, I think the reader goes into it with eyes wide open -- if you read the review, you do surely expect some spoilers, don't you?

I can't help it.  I posted this on my High Fidelity blog, which is made up entirely of top five lists.  It was fun.  So I am reposting it here.

---

5.  Jacques Derrida -- I was surprised by just how many of his books I have; if I included books about him, he'd probably move up on the list

4.  William Shakespeare -- as above, if I counted books about him and his works, he'd move up, quite possibly to the top of the list

3.  George MacDonald -- loads and loads of great fiction

2.  Diana Wynne Jones -- it was close, but I think she  was just edged out

1.  C. S. Lewis -- with both fiction and nonfiction in, he takes it by a nose; his nonfiction really put him over the edge, considering that my interests so thoroughly overlap with his, apparently

To make this list, a author has to be (or have been) very prolific, and I have to like a lot of what s/he has written.  There were other authors who came close, but didn't quite match these five -- J. R. R. Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin were probably the closest.  Douglas Adams, J. K. Rowling, Charles Williams, and Geraldine Harris would certainly have made the list if they had written in larger quantities.  Ellen Gunderson Traylor comes near making the list just because she has written so much and I like her novels reasonably well.  Other near misses include Francis Schaffer, Jean Paul Sartre, and G. K. Chesterton.  Given a few more years, I think Jasper Fforde is a sure thing.

That's part of what I liked about the latest installment of the Chrestomanci series that I've read, Conrad's Fate (Pinhoe Egg is on its way).   The story is told from the perspective of the household servants (much like Happily N'ever After.  I liked how Christopher, the Chrestomanci-to-be (though that comes later in his history... earlier in the series, though), puzzled through this whole question of servants and masters.  I don't mean to say that he solves the puzzle for himself, but I do like how he deals with it. I don't want to say too much about the ending, but I will say that I don't think it spoils the perspective offered throughout the story.

Children's lit critics have often said that there are three taboos for children's literature:  money, sex, and death (I will have to get some quotations from said critics at a later date).  I like that Chrestomanci burst through the money taboo.  It's an interesting series for that.  I haven't read much in the way of response to this issue, but it is one I would love to see explored more by people who specialize in children's literature, whether they are teachers of kids or academics more interested in the texts themselves.  It would be interested to see the responses to the way the question of money is handled in this series.

Diana Wynne Jones has become one of my favorite authors over the years, partly just because she is clever and writes well.  But in addition to that, she has a real way of making the reader face some ideas and thoughts that can be sticky.  And it's all just part of the story.  That's good stuff.

One of the things I like best about it is the intertextual references found there.  I liked its manipulation of Biblical narratives, even if it was a little "irreverent."  I loved the intermingling with classics of the genre like Frankenstein (one of my favorites of all times).  It's things like this that make me really love the whole sci-fi genre.

By the way, I don't actually recommend reading the third book in a series unless you've read the rest.

You can pick the novel up on Amazon.  I haven't read it yet, but if his site is any indication, this guy can write.  Enjoy.