Weather to read

[adrian_turtle]

I have a question about vibes. Imagine curling up on the couch with hot drinks, reading to one another while literal and metaphorical blizzards howled outside. Do you think it better to read a wintry book like The Wolves of Willoughby Chase or The Dark Is Rising or a summery book like Gone-Away Lake?

Comments

[elusiveat]

Wintry for me, definitely!

[adrian_turtle]

Thanks! We went with that and it felt very cosy

[elusiveat]

Yay!

[evalerie]

Oh wow, I don't know almost anybody who has heard of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I have no advice about which book to read, I'm just glad to know of someone else who has heard of that book. Though it's been so long since I read it that I only remember tiny bits now. Did you read the rest of the series? Aiken kept pulling out a minor character from the previous story and making that person the main character in the next book. I sort of liked that a lot, though also I wanted to hear more about the characters from the earlier books, and there was little to nothing ever said about them. At least, that's what I remember half a century later.

[adrian_turtle]

I read it in my youth and loved some of it. I remember discussing it with Anne (maybe also with you?) and being shocked to discover it was alternate history. I mean, I recognized that parts were as over-the-top as Pippi Longstocking, but the frame story of the wicked Hanoverians trying to overthrow the king? I knew so very little about UK history that seemed perfectly reasonable.

Joan Aiken wrote lots and lots of other books in many genres. My particular favorites are the stories of Mark and Harriet Armitage. Before they were born, their mother wished on a magic ring that she would have two children with curious and energetic natures who would never be bored. After Aiken's death, those stories were collected in The Serial Garden and last year I got to introduce them to Vicki and Andy.

[evalerie]

Come to think of it, I do slightly remember either you or Anne pointing out that The Wolves of Willoughby Chase took place in an alternate history of England. I too would not have noticed that on my own, though once someone pointed it out to me I realized it was true. If it wasn't you, it must have been Anne who was the source of that info.

I did not know Joan Aiken had written other things than that one series. Neat!

I always meant to read that series out loud to my older two kids. Their dad and I did a lot of reading out loud for a *long* part of their childhood, long after they could easily read hard books on their own. But I never got around to that series. Both kids actively rejected "The Dark Is Rising" long before we got to the good parts, so I don't know if they would have done okay with Joan Aiken, either. Sigh....

[evalerie]

Come to think of it, I remember exactly when it dawned on me that if you liked one book by an author, you might also enjoy other books by the same author. It was when I decided to read my way through the kids' fiction section at my local public library, starting at one end (authors with "A" names) and working my way through to the other. I found "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase" early in that read-through. It might well have been that series that made me realize that if you liked one book in a series you might enjoy reading the rest of the series too. But it was when I got up to Madeline L'Engle that I found a bunch of her writing and realized that I might like all of the books by an author that I liked.

It's likely that I didn't find Aiken's other serieses because "Aiken" is alphabetically before "L'Engle," so it hadn't yet occurred to me to go look.

ps. I never finished my alphabetical read-through. After a long Madeline L'Engle phase, I continued a short way farther through the alphabet, until I reached Anne McCaffrey's books Dragonsong and Dragonsinger. I loved them, so I used my newfound knowledge to find my way out of the kids' section and into the books intended for grownups, to read lots more McCaffrey. I never went back. :)

[silveradept]

Are you looking to escape (summer) or indulge (winter) in the weather?

[adrian_turtle]

My first thought was to indulge, but Andy suggested escape. So I asked what others thought. Last night we started "The Dark Is Rising," which is a perfectly midwinter book. Seems good.