Books

The Dark is Rising

I occasionally find people on the internet who are fans of these books by Susan Cooper, but there really should be more well known than they are. A fantasy series that draws its inspiration from the British landscape it’s original, magical and enchanting. The series follows the battle of the two great forces of Light and Dark and focused on six main characters caught up in the fight. First we meet the three seemingly normal children who find themselves thrust into something they don’t fully understand, then Will who discovers he has a remarkable destiny and Bran the albino boy with a mysterious past. Through it all moves the strange figure of Merriman, whose true name will me familiar to anyone with even a passing knowledge of British mythology.

Harry Potter

Having fought against the Potter phenomenon for a couple of years I finally succumbed in July 1999. I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said already so I will simply announce: I am a Potterholic and proud of it!

The Discworld Series

How to describe Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series to the uninitiated? They’re set on a flat world, which rides on the back of a turtle. Everything on this world is…well sort of like ours but at the same time miles removed from reality. The recurring characters include incompetent wizards, sarcastic witches and of course Death, who isn’t such a bad bloke when you get to know him. Forget what you think you know about fantasy writing: Pratchett will surprise you with his humour, intelligence and compassion.

Brideshead Revisited

Behind the Lord of the Rings, this is my all time favourite book. Told in flashback it relates the story of the life of Charles Ryder, now a disenchanted soldier, ‘wifeless, childless and loveless.’ It follows his involvement with the Flyte family as he first falls for the charismatic Sebastian and later his troubled sister Julia. The story covers pretty much everything: love, death, religion and the difficulty in coping with the inevitability of change.

By Susan Cooper

By J.K. Rowling

By Terry Pratchett

By Evelyn Waugh

I Capture the Castle

Another book that should be better known. Cassandra Mortmain begins her narration with ‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink’ and from then on draws the reader into the story of her family. With a superb talent for description Dodie Smith paints an engrossing picture of Cassandra’s world and the characters in it. Rose the older sister who is desperate to escape from poverty, Topaz the stepmother who has a fondness for communing nude with nature and Cassandra’s eccentric father, irascible, reclusive, but touched by genius. All their lives are turned upside down by the arrival of two American brothers. Will the story have a happy ending?

By Dodie Smith