Posts by Lucy Stewart
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Is this worry well-founded?
Harry Potter.
The Chrysalids
Science fiction with children as protagonists, plus the happy ending is in New Zealand.
Oh, John Wyndham, how I love the many ways you destroyed human civilisation. The Brits do it so much better. (Side-note: the BBC is remaking Day of the Triffids as a mini-series with Eddy Izzard. Be very afraid?)
-
Do not under any circumstances watch the movie. Don't tell yourself it might be interesting to see how the story works with an American(!!) protagonist. Don't tell yourself it might be worth it to see Christopher Eccleston as the Rider, or that any movie with Frances Conroy and Ian McShane has to be at least ok. Just...don't.
Oh, I have the best story about that movie. I'd heard it was shite, so two friends and I got a bottle of vodka and sat down to do one-third shots every time they got something egregiously wrong (one-third so as to give ourselves a running chance at making it through the whole movie).
We only got fifteen minutes in because by that point we were so drunk we couldn't process it any more. That is how bad it is.
Personal favourite Discworld characters - Granny Weatherwax, the librarian (sending an "ook" to Islander) Death and Sam Vimes. I just love Sam. I think Guards! Guards! is one of my favourites actually - and Mort.
I'm a huge Susan fan, but Moist (from the last few books) is really growing on me.
-
Awesome kids books (all English I'm afraid, as that was where I spent my childhood) - which I also re-read on a regular basis:
Oooh, also, Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising - perhaps a little old at this point, but the 8-year-old would probably up for The Boggart. TDIR is the only take on the Arthurian myths I have ever been able to stand (apart from the fabulous current TV series Merlin, emphasis on the faaaaaabulous.)
-
Pure Brokeback.
I'm sure Gerry Brownlee agrees with you.
-
Dear Harold, This note is a very sad one. In fact the saddest I have ever written. Words are not adequate to express my sorrow or to indicate what the departure of your mother means to me. She passed away peacefully ... Her passing was just like the running down of a clock, gently to the end. About an hour and a half before she died, she said "Goodbye: Goodbye everybody", and her last words were to me, uttered when she was very weak, "Darling, I am all right..."
I'm not ashamed to say that made me tear up.
I got married a month ago, to a man I love very dearly. I think the way I put it best was to my aunt, maybe three years ago, when she asked me why I thought he was a keeper. I told her it was because every morning when I woke up, it made me happy to see him lying next to me. And that's it, really; I never fell in love with him, in any sort of big, obvious, butterflies-in-the-stomach way. I just realised that it made me absurdly happy to have him there in every small moment. I'm supposed to be too young to know what love really is, or how to do it right, but if being happy that you get to do the dishes with someone isn't love, I'm not sure what is.
-
"Hogfather" - the movie -is apparently on, on Thursday evening ( family person just emailed me but didnt include time or channel because I'll be over the hill then, and watching it with them.)
Really? Choice. I've done the re-read but a re-watch will be just the ticket for Christmas Eve.
-
In which case, why not revisit Gerald Durrell ( My Family and Other Animals, Beasts in My Belfry, The Bafut Beagles, Three Singles to Adventure, A Zoo in My Luggage ...)?
On second thoughts, 8 might be a little young ... but I started reading him at around 10 *shrug*.No, it's about perfect, at least for My Family and Other Animals; it's the same age as the protagonist, after all.
While we're in the thirties, there's also Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons etc.) Or what about Brian Jacques' Redwall books? Depends on the child's taste for anthropomorphism, of course, but if he likes Calvin and Hobbes you're probably OK on that front.
-
So what are the books that you've read a zillion times?
Everything I own, basically, because my criterion for buying books tends to be "how many times will I re-read it?" rather than anything else. Books I just want to try I'll get out of the library.
What I'm re-reading right now for the zillionth time, though, is Jostein Gaardner's The Christmas Mystery - the proper way, one day of December at a time. The really religious bits bother me a little more now than they did at sixteen, when I first read it - but it's such a lovely way to tell the myth of Christmas that they mostly flow over me.
-
On the one hand I strive to introduce more literary fruit and veg into his starchy white-bread book diet - tips appreciated
Not *exactly* what you're asking for, but if the eight-year-old likes Hardy Boys, may I suggest the Adventure books, by Willard Price? They're horrifically un-PC, especially when it comes to anyone who's not an upstanding white male like the heroes of the piece, but I loved them to bits when I was his age, and they still can't be beaten for random natural history facts.
-
My family is developing a tradition of trying to cook the ham on the BBQ, letting the fat run off to the tray, which then catches fire, cooking the lid of the BBQ, flames six feet high, almost setting the house on fire.
But each to their own I guess.
That sounds like the kind of tradition I could get behind, but I admit there are potential downsides.
I quite liked 2009 - I acquired a husband and a degree, and ditched a much-hated job - but it was very much a year of transition. Glad it happened, happy to move on.