If you are a fan of Agatha Christie you might be interested in reading the article by Sophie Hannah which appeared in the Guardian Review today. You can view it here.
Agatha Christie – Guardian Review article
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Tag Archives: Guardian Review
Guardian Review Articles
I must admit that I’ve never read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. I suppose I should have by now, but I’ve always thought it might be a bit too sad. If you are one of the many who have read it then you’ll be interested in this week’s Guardian review. As it’s the 50th anniversary of Plath’s death they have asked writers and poets to reflect on what her work means to them. You can read it here.
Elsewhere in the Guardian review there’s an article by bibliotherapists who explain the power of books to change your mood. If you’re interested have a look here.
And if it’s more about Jane Austen that you’re after you might like to take a look at the article headed Sensational,exotic,dramatic – in which Simon Callow writes about the new biography titled The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things.
Lastly, have you heard that they’ve given Anne of Green Gables a make-over and she’s now a blonde!! Have a look at this article about it. As a redhead myself I’m not a happy bunny. Not only blonde but she now apparently has bedroom eyes. For goodness sake – she was a wee girl with red hair and freckles, and her appearance is quite a large party of the stories, why should she be dipped in bleach and sexed up. It’s sick.
Guardian Book Club: Hilary Mantel
I didn’t get a chance to look at Saturday’s Guardian until this morning (Monday) because I was busy reading Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up The Bodies. If like me you’ve been reading Mantel’s books then you’ll probably be interested in reading this article. In it she tells how she came to write the novels which would win the Booker – twice.
In it she also explains how she decided to call Cromwell ‘he’ throughout Wolf Hall and says that ‘Most readers caught on quickly. Those who didn’t complained.’
All authors see their books as their babies and can be a wee bit silly about any negative aspects of them. There were definitely a few clunky passages in Wolf Hall which were full of he said – the he not always being Cromwell of course. I didn’t complain, but did think that a bit of editing was needed to tidy some passages up.
Classic Children’s Literature
I’ve made a bit of a study of classic children’s literature over the years and although I don’t count myself an expert on the subject, I felt I just had to write to The Guardian Review about last week’s article by A.S. Byatt.
So I was really pleased to see that they had actually published the letter yesterday and illustrated it with a cartoon.
Letters section of Guardian Review 6/3/10
For some reason the Review letters aren’t on the website so I can’t link to them. I took a photo of the page instead. Here’s a close-up of my letter and their cartoon which was by Tom Gauld.
In general it was quite a good article but I do think that Byatt might have made some mention of the fact that so many of the authors she mentioned were actually Scottish.
I find that people from England tend to take it for granted that the great children’s classics were written by English writers. However, J.M. Barrie, George MacDonald, R.L. Stevenson, Kenneth Grahame and A.A. Milne were all Scottish. In the case of Milne, I believe he was born in England but brought up by Scottish parents and had a grandfather who was a church of Scotland minister. Just thought I’d mention it.